Oh, Canada

So it appears the entire country of Canada is up in arms about the hit Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara put on Montreal forward Max Pacioretty. Yes, it looks pretty vicious (in slow motion, after dozens of viewings) but in no way was a hit like that malicious.

Immediately following the game, Chara said the hit was incidental and he felt bad for Pacioretty, who suffered a sever concussion and a cracked vertebra. The NHL agreed, saying it would not punish Chara any more than the interference call he received on the ice.

That sent Canada into a fit. Pacioretty was “disgusted” the NHL took no further action, Air Canada, a major sponsor of the league, threatened to pull out and the Montreal Police Department opened an investigation into Chara and the hit.

Ridiculous? Yes.

Firstly, I find hockey to be one of the most hypocritical sports out there. Let me get this straight: you can punch a guy in the face, fracturing his cheek bone that forces him to sit out 4-6 weeks, and that’s fine. But you hit a guy in an awkward spot on the ice so he caroms into the partition of the glass, and you’re a potential criminal?

My stepdad, a big Canadiens fan, said, “His injuries are too serious to do nothing.” If that’s the case, the Massachusetts State Police should have opened a case against the guy who checked Travis Roy into the boards during a college hockey game nearly two decades ago.

Look, hockey is a rough and tumble sport meant for guys who can take a beating. It’s almost a border war: if you live below it, the hit was incidental. If you live above it, it was done with purpose. I don’t really have a dog in this fight, so I personally believe the Canadians are doing more feeling with their heads than they are thinking with their heads.

Oil prices are high, so turn off the Heat

From our trusty intern Cheyenne, hater of all things Miami Heat:

The Miami HEAT are on a five-game losing streak and have to play the Lakers tomorrow. The HEAT can’t beat the upper echelon, evidenced by their 1-9 record against the five top teams.

If the HEAT can’t beat the good teams, they can not win an NBA championship — simple as that. Against the top five teams, Miami gives up 97.3 points per game and only score just 92.2 PPG. What a great “Decision” by LeBron James. He went to Miami to win a championship, but now his record is not even as good as it was in Cleveland.

I think that is hilarious. I love watching the HEAT suffer. Poor, poor HEAT … go right ahead and cry. Surely it won’t be the last time.

Hoop it up

NFL training camp can’t come soon enough. Of course, there’s a chance it won’t come when scheduled as the threat of a lockout continues to loom. But the fact that the NFL has extended the current collective bargaining agreement twice already is cause for optimism. Hopefully a deal gets done soon, because college basketball will be over before we know it, and baseball doesn’t have the capability to hold my attention for 162 games plus playoffs.

Speaking of basketball, we could be in for one of the more interesting NCAA tournaments in recent memory this season. There are a lot of very good teams, but no great teams, which means we could see more upsets than usual, and those are always fun. I’m also curious to see how the 68-team format will work. Letting 65 teams in was dumb, so 68 seems even more extraneous, but we’ll see how it goes. It seems like only a matter of time before the Big Dance undergoes a major expansion, to 72 or 128 teams. There’s too much money to be made and it will be hard to convince the NCAA that more is not always better.

The “more is better” philosophy is quite prevalent in high school sports in Rhode Island. The mantra of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League seems to be: Win, or move down until you do win. There are entirely too many divisions, but apparently the goal is for every team to be able to compete for a “championship” every single season. If you can’t do that for a couple years, move down a division. If there isn’t a lower division, one will be created.
Success is cyclical. Some years will be good, others will not. Other than private schools that can recruit top players year after year, every team goes through ups and downs. And some schools just don’t have the talent pool in certain sports at certain times. There’s no shame in that, it’s just life. We’re all good at some things and not so much at others. Being bad at something doesn’t mean you deserve special treatment.

Take, for instance, the Miami Heat. They’re great at smacking around lousy teams (i.e. Wizards, Kings, etc.), but can’t cut it when playing with the big boys (i.e. Bulls, Celtics, Spurs). But the NBA isn’t going to create a Division II for the Heat to compete in. They might as well go cry to their moms.