by Bob Herpen
Phanatic Hockey Editor
Abracadabra: I Wanna Reach Out and Grab Ya
Rick Rypien might have set back player-fan relations 10 years when he decided to play Diana Ross when he reached out and touched a Minnesota fan following a fight on October 19.
Only seconds after the Canucks pugilist tangled with a willing Wild participant, Rypien was huffing and puffing on his way toward the dressing room when a young man with an apparent death wish leaned over to clap and
offer some derisive words.
Unamused, Rypien grabbed the fan, but his grip was released seconds later thanks to the fan's friend and some alert members of the Canucks coaching staff.
One of the last bastions of blue-collar entertainment, hockey has always been a fan participation sport. The connection between fan and player used to be much closer due to financial circumstances and background, and that closeness was manifested in the relatively small arenas in which games were played.
It's only in the last decade, when the NHL expanded and moved away from intimate venues to corporate behemoths, that the disconnect started. Physical distance due to larger seating areas went hand-in-hand with the league's salary explosion.
Given that, I'm not surprised that James Engquist was crying assault and has lawyered up.
The idea that the fan is totally blameless and athletes have no recourse is a thought that must have creeped in over the last decade, because there are numerous incidents since the original expansion in 1967 that put the notion of a fan-player barrier to rest.
There's the often-discussed epic Bruins-Rangers 1979 battle at Madison Square Garden when Boston players ran into the stands to take on unruly Rangers fans. The loser in Philadelphia that went over the plexiglass in the penalty box to rile up Leafs enforcer Tie Domi in 2001 also gets a ton of mileage.
Matthew Barnaby also once got clipped for engaging with a spectator.
A cursory YouTube search pulled up an infamous but forgotten incident at the Boston Garden in the Fall of 1986, during a game between the Red Wings and Bruins. As Detroit exited into the tunnel between periods, a fan sitting right on the railing leaned over and taunted a young Steve Yzerman. When Yzerman turned to address the fan, the fan threw a punch.
Chaos ensued.
In the days before the rampant need to record every minute of our lives and everybody else's, the fan could get away with saying anything and have other fans back him up due to nothing more than mutual disgust with their team's opponents. In that case, the Boston fan said Yzerman struck him first.
However, video evidence later surfaced that the fan instigated the incident and Yzerman's teammates jumped in to help him out of trouble. That fan quickly changed his story.
Back in the present, copious video evidence exists from multiple sources show that Rypien was the main perpetrator and has done the dirt, but to what extent was he provoked?
In legal terms, there are such things as "fighting words," where assault charges against a defendant have been dropped due to evidence the presumed guilty party was provoked into action. The precedent in the real world, while once broadly drawn, has been narrowed predominantly to racial content.
What Engquist said to Rypien is, sadly, a matter of one man's word against another, with Engquist's friends on one side and Rypien's Canucks teammates on the other. We're sure to get an amusing transcript of the exhange if it ever gets as far as a courtroom.
But still, fans should reasonably expect a player, hot with emotion from a confrontation, to at least turn his attention toward us if we're being obnoxious in his general direction. Why should fans think they can do or say
anything they want without repercussions just because they're on the other side of the glass or railing?
It's just another case of common sense lost, and undue entitlement, knowing the history of the sport.
Given that, it's completely unfair and smacks of the PC thuggery that has infected the league's top echelon that Rypien -- painted as the unruly aggressor -- gets a six-game suspension and the threat of legal action over
his head, while Engquist -- the meek paying customer -- gets a call from the Commissioner who butters him up with dinner and free tickets.
The only thing that's left here is Engquist's mother holding him and kissing his boo-boos while the bad man is locked away.
Make no mistake, Rick Rypien lost his head, made an obvious mistake, offered his apologies and will pay his penalty. He's not 100 percent at fault, though.
Nonetheless, as the Good Doctor once said, "Buy the ticket, take the ride." If you're a fan and want to experience the game by directing actions or words towards players from close range, you better expect them to take notice.
Briere's Baptism
All it took was a franchise-record playoff run and a near-fatal car crash to motivate Danny Briere coming into this season.
I'll leave a player's personal feelings towards fate and faith alone, but whatever the aftermath of that accident on Interstate 81 in upstate New York, it has spurred something in the Quebec native.
He's clearly been the most consistent player on the ice for the Flyers in the first month of the season, and now, as the longest-tenured NHL player on the top two lines with the trade of Simon Gagne to Tampa.
Though he's not paired with fellow French-Canadian Claude Giroux (armed with a three-year contract extension), having another native presence in the locker room with Gagne's departure has been beneficial to both. Each one motivates the other, and it's clear to see that while Giroux currently holds the overall
points edge (14 in 15 games), Briere has been the engine which has moved the team in the first month.
Briere's pairing with Ville Leino and Scott Hartnell should prove to be a rare combination in the league, in that it should only be broken up if the Flyers have a prolonged slump.
Hartnell's size and ability to work behind the net, when he can stay on his feet, gives the Flyers possession in the offensive zone; Leino's vision and puck-handling abilities has confounded many a defender since last Spring; but it is Briere's keen sense of open ice and his finishing ability that keeps the line fresh and unpredictable to opposing defensive schemes.
Always Something Cooking, But Nothing in the Pot
Even though the pace of games in the NHL is light-years ahead of what it was before the cancelled season, goals are down noticeably in the first month of the year.
It's easy to notice in the line scores, the differential of victory, and in the individual highs for each club.
Thus far, the single-game high for goals in one contest is seven, accomplished by Washington (October 9 and 30), Edmonton (October 29), Carolina (November 3) and Florida (November 5).
The largest overall margin of victory has been six goals in a 6-0 Florida decision against Tampa Bay on October 16, and the next highest is five which has been accomplished only seven times, most recently in the Avalanche's 5-0 win over Dallas last Saturday.
Shutouts have been ordered up an alarming 29 times, and there have already been six 1-0 games.
It's not the death knell, but it's only taken five years for the "new NHL" playing style to devolve into a defensive mindset. Usually the first six weeks of the year, when standings and playoff seeds aren't the focus, that you find more outbursts of offense. That clearly hasn't been the case in October and
early November, despite the goal-scoring consistency of previous campaigns dating back to 2005.
Still, for those of us who remember life in the league before 2004, we know that it's infinitely harder to promote goal scoring than it is to find ways to stop it.
Bedeviled
The New Jersey Devils' years of success have hit an obvious snag in the early going.
Off to a 4-10-1 start which sees them in last place in the Atlantic Division, the club ranks last in total goals scored in the East with 25, and is tied for third-worst in total goals allowed with 48.
There's speculation that franchise icon and current head coach John MacLean could be fired. Ilya Kovalchuk's contract has all the markings of an albatross and his play has buzzards circling the Prudential Center's roof. Their veterans are either hurt or underperforming, the defense is thin save for
Anton Volchenkov, and I bet Martin Brodeur can hear himself age every minute he's in the crease.
It's a sad end to one of the league's long-term success stories, but one sure to elicit a wide range of emotions.
The franchise shook off two failed experiments in Kansas City and Denver, along with more than a decade of ineptitude in the late 1980's and managed to make the playoffs in every season except one since 1988. New Jersey's three Stanley Cups vaulted the team into the NHL elite, but the manner in which the empire was
built -- on stellar goaltending and repressive defense -- ultimately set the development of the league back 5-to-10 years.
All of this has been a grim reminder of the early years of the Devils, who finished last or second-to-last in the old Patrick Division every year from 1982 to 1987 while unsuccessfully trying to convert North Jersey suburbanites who were brought up as Rangers fans.
With the exception of the Detroit Red Wings' 24-year run of prominence, New Jersey's sudden free-fall is yet another reminder of the capricious nature of power and prestige in the NHL.
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