The "Rinaldo wasn't suspended" thread.

[radoran]

 I don't know about nonsense, but it's sophistry. It could maybe be true in a theoretical sense

 

I know sophistry. I work with sophistry. Sophistry is a friend of mine.

 

That, sir, was nonsense

 

[aziz]

That "every hit" could be called charging? That's nonsense. And you know it.

 

no.  it is not. 

 

43.1 Charging - A minor or major penalty shall be imposed on a player or

goalkeeper who skates or jumps into, or charges an opponent in any

manner.

Charging shall mean the actions of a player or goalkeeper who, as

a result of distance traveled, shall violently check an opponent in any

manner. A “charge” may be the result of a check into the boards, into

the goal frame or in open ice.

 

find me one single hit in the game of hockey that the above can in no way be applied to.  find me one single hit that involves no distance traveled and is not violent in any manner.  

 

actually, don't sweat it.  you can't.  it doesn't exist.  the rule is written intentionally broad as to be applicable to every hit in the game, so refs have the option of penalizing anything they feel needs some kind of punishment, even if it doesn't break any of the more specific rules established.

 

so, yes.  every single hit.  the fact that your argument is almost entirely based on the assignment of a penalty that is intentionally ambiguous is the absurd thing here.  that and the idea that someone finishing a check rather than singlemindedly chasing pucks anywhere they happen to go is somehow abhorrent.

[ruxpin]

Yeah, me too, although it has to be said, easier said than done. It's natural to want to know if your pass succeeded, especially there in the ice where, if it doesn't, it's coming back towards your net and you need to know that so you can get back to defend (here, note that the pass is to a D-man, MDV)

 

I agree.  Although, given the time left in the period, where was it really going to go (also an argument for "why the hit???")?

[JackStraw]

find me one single hit in the game of hockey that the above can in no way be applied to.  find me one single hit that involves no distance traveled and is not violent in any manner.  

 

There are many. Like this one...

 

 

First off, I assume we agree that the "distance travelled" clause applies to the hitter, and not the hittee. Defensemen routinely make checks on attacking forwards that don't involve any significant "distance travelled". Frequently they're actually moving backwards and letting the forward close the distance. Kronwall has made a living of laying people out who come down his side of the ice and basically provide all the force needed to lay themselves out. There is also plenty of checking that goes on around the crease area, and a long the boards, that is close quarters. The rule is vague but it pretty clearly implies that the violence of the it comes as a result of distance travelled. Not that the player travelled some unspecified distance (like one stride) to make a hit.

[radoran]

so, yes. every single hit. the fact that your argument is almost entirely based on the assignment of a penalty that is intentionally ambiguous is the absurd thing here. that and the idea that someone finishing a check rather than singlemindedly chasing pucks anywhere they happen to go is somehow abhorrent.

 

No, I specifically asked if every hit was like Rinaldo's - that a player traveled 20 feet to hit the player.

 

You said yes, every hit was. That's absurd and remains so. If you didn't mean that, then just say you were wrong about it. I certainly have walked back posts I've made on here - and did so with you as recently as yesterday.

 

Yes, there can be "distance" involved in "every hit." Six inches. Three feet. Ten, even, in some circumstances.

 

Not twenty.

 

And @JackStraw ably defines many examples of hits that don't.

 

The difference is obvious to anyone who has watched the game. And you didn't need to post the rule - I posted it in the thread earlier today.

 

Again, you yourself described the hit as "unnecessary" - it was a penalty. It remains a penalty. It will always be a penalty.

 

And it should be.

 

Just for the record, my "argument" is that it was and is a penalty. And it was and is. And that as a repeat offender it would not be at all unreasonable to suspend Rinaldo for a reckless, illegal - "unnecessary" - play that resulted in injury to another player.

 

That's it. Your ludicrous attempt to frame it as me trying to take hitting entirely out of the game notwithstanding.

[mojo1917]

his head isn't down until he releases the puck.  he looks at rinaldo, then at the puck in his skates, then tilts his head forward and turns to look past his shoulder to see what how the pass worked out.

i am always amazed by how 2 people can watch the same thing and have completely different views of what happened.

 

McQuaid's stick and left leg are in contact with Couturier's hip/leg...if i'm Sean that's what i'm worried most about, not Zac Rinaldo 8 to 12 feet away as the buzzer is sounding....

 

the hit was bullshit, apparently not worthy of a suspension but worthy of a game misconduct.   it was opportunistic and not necessary in any real hockey capacity.

 

I just don't buy that 14 is admiring his pass there...it doesn't fit with the hockey player he has been his whole career. 

[aziz]

No, I specifically asked if every hit was like Rinaldo's - that a player traveled 20 feet to hit the player.

 

if the fact that rinaldo did not take a single stride in those twenty feet makes no difference, then every check more than 20 feet from the bench involved a player traveling more than 20 feet.  if how those 20+ feet were covered is irrelevant, then it is irrelevant.

 

if rinaldo skated full-bore all the way into the hit, i would conceed your point.  he did not.  he strided towards giroux, saw the puck go to couturier, changed his angle and glided into the contact.  i'm not seeing where the amount of distance has any importance here at all.  he was 20 feet away when he identified his target.  why does that matter in any way?

 

my "every single hit" was not about the distance, though.  i can't understand why you are fixated on that aspect, but i'll give you that much.  my "every single hit" comment was about them all being illegal, according to the almost uselessly vague wording of the charging rule.  

 

And @JackStraw ably defines many examples of hits that don't.

 

with all respect to mr straw, he did not provide many examples of hits that don't fall within the rule.  he offered an entirely reasonable guideline as to how the rule can be applied.  should be applied, even.  an entirely reasonable guideline that is not included in the rulebook, however, and is often not applied by game officials. 

 

my bottom line:

 

the only thing that elevated this hit above any others was couturier crumpled on the ice afterwards.  a major penalty was issued because the optics of a guy laying on the ice caught the referee's particular attention.  rinaldo did not stride into the hit, did not come from a weird angle that targeted the head in lieu of the body, arms were at his side, couturier was still the technical puck carrier.  the set up to contact was clean.  couturier saw rinaldo, saw rinaldo change direction towards him, and then looked down and behind himself, hanging his head out in front of his body like a dilapidated scarecrow.  rinaldo put his shoulder into center mass, but couturier had cleverly placed his head in front of his chest, and contact was made.  couturier goes down ugly, and the refs reacted.  the league reviewed the play, and decided rinaldo's decision-making was not out of line, and opted against subsequent punishment.

 

you said a player should not be expected to protect themselves against illegal hits, but nothing about this hit was particularly illegal until the referees reacted to a player laying facedown.  in the moment couturier saw rinaldo heading his way, there was zero reason for him to think anything other than, "i'm about to get run over".  what turned this hit from run of the mill into this really fun debate was couturier deciding to do nothing to prepare himself for the contact he had every reason to expect was coming.  legally or no.

[2nd String Champ]

I hope he was man enough to go apologize to Coots in person.

 

Pftftftft!

 

No way. I bet he laughed about it good and hard.

 

12 games minimum.

 

He's a moron who just won't get the message. Idiots like him shouldn't even be in the NHL. They sully the image of the game and are a massive black eye to and hockey league in the world.

[aziz]

McQuaid's stick and left leg are in contact with Couturier's hip/leg...if i'm Sean that's what i'm worried most about, not Zac Rinaldo 8 to 12 feet away as the buzzer is sounding....

 

i'm going to re-quote something, and tell me if it makes any sense at all:

 

 

if i'm Sean that's what i'm worried most about, not Zac Rinaldo 8 to 12 feet away as the buzzer is sounding....

 

so.  you see zach rinaldo turn towards you 8-12 feet away while you are up against the boards with a player on your back...and you would have just said, "pft, who cares, i'm sure this will go just fine, i'm probably not about to get hit.  it's just zach rinaldo, renowned for letting up on hits all the time"?

 

 

I just don't buy that 14 is admiring his pass there...it doesn't fit with the hockey player he has been his whole career. 

 

 

i.....what?  he leans forward and then looks down and around the player on his back, staring right at the puck.  how in the world could you see anything there, other than him looking directly at the puck?  his head tracks it, he is obviously watching to see how the play develops.  i mean, do you think he suddenly found the backchecker's skates fascinating?  what do you think he is looking at, if not the puck??

[WordsOfWisdom]

Which is why it was a penalty and a game misconduct.

 

In all honesty, I think the real reason why hits like this result in a penalty + game misconduct is because of the NHL's hidden policy on "game management". Which is to say, the thought process of an NHL official would goes something like this:

1. See player lying on ice unconscious.
2. Penalize the player on the opposing team that everyone is chasing after whether you saw it or not. ie: Make up some sort of penalty, regardless of whether hit was clean or dirty.
3. According to league memo: Throw in a game misconduct so that the game doesn't degenerate into a series of bench clearing brawls.
4. Done.

At the end of the day, think of the game misconduct as being a 1-game suspension. Even if the hit was a bit late, he paid for it by being penalized and missing the rest of the game. See what I'm saying?

[radoran]

it was opportunistic and not necessary in any real hockey capacity.

 

It's absolutely absurd to say that a player should be "finishing his check" at the end of the period like that. Rinaldo is clearly trying to "high/low" Couturier with McQuaid on the "low" end. He's not "breaking up a play" or really doing anything in a "hockey sense." He's hitting for hitting's sake.

 

Or that Couturier is "admiring his pass" with mere seconds to go (as you note, he's more concerned with McQuaid's position). If this was "middle of the period" I think his reactions would be different.

 

Or that a player "gliding" 20 feet to deliver a hit as the clock expires is "hockey" in any sense of the game. That's exactly the kind of nonsense that the league is trying to stop. And exactly the kind of nonsense that got Rinaldo a ticket out of Philadelphia.

 

"Unnecessary" is the kindest term for it.

[WordsOfWisdom]

I totally missed this view. It looks like the elbow was up...and rinaldo had his glove off...and his hand is really tiny. It also looks like couturier is sad.

 

OMG LOL.   

 

I'm trying not to get anyone upset but I fell off my chair laughing when I saw that photo.

[flyerrod]

To me it is a penalty... the league will do whatever they want and they are wildly inconsistent in their determinations of incidents.  With that being said if this same exact hit occurred w/ Rinaldo taking the hit and Gudas making the hit - you can bet your ass this is a suspension against the Flyers.   

 

I hope next game someone targets Rinaldo's Bergeron's  head... sorry, he has had it coming for some time.   

 

 

There, fixed it

[Podein25]

I agree.  Although, given the time left in the period, where was it really going to go (also an argument for "why the hit???")?

 

 

How much time was left? Did Cooter know? Did Rinaldo know?

[aziz]

He's hitting for hitting's sake.

 

the horror.

[WordsOfWisdom]

NHL Player Safety on this hit: "while we support the call made by the official on the ice" - which was a charging major and game misconduct - "this is not charging."

 

You can't make this stuff up.

 

LOL. They really need to get their story straight before they release one of their PR managed statements to the world. 

 

Regarding the issue of charging:

 

I think the league really needs to get this one nailed down once and for all. My understanding is that a "charge" is when you take more than two strides towards an opposing player and hit them. It has always been called that way, regardless of what the rule book says. The NHL rule book is a pile of excrement. It says nothing about 4-minute high-sticking double minors for drawing blood either, but we all know that rule. Someone should write the actual NHL rule book according to how things are really called and why.

 

All players travel a distance to hit someone, and the distance they travel isn't the issue. The league will never be able to legislate distance. The issue is when players build up significant momentum (using many strides) for the sole purpose of delivering a hit. That's when charging is called... because it's an actual charge. Simply drifting/coasting at a high rate of speed from one section of the ice to another and hitting someone when you reach your destination has never been charging.

[Podein25]

 

I think the league really needs to get this one nailed down once and for all. My understanding is that a "charge" is when you take more than two strides towards an opposing player and hit them. It has always been called that way, regardless of what the rule book says. The NHL rule book is a pile of excrement. It says nothing about 4-minute high-sticking double minors for drawing blood either, but we all know that rule. Someone should write the actual NHL rule book according to how things are really called and why.

 

All players travel a distance to hit someone, and the distance they travel isn't the issue. The league will never be able to legislate distance. The issue is when players build up significant momentum (using many strides) for the sole purpose of delivering a hit. That's when charging is called... because it's an actual charge. Simply drifting/coasting at a high rate of speed from one section of the ice to another and hitting someone when you reach your destination has never been charging

 

 

I always felt that you knew charging when you saw it, and often that is the case, but this hit makes me question that. It's right on the bubble. For charging and interference.  

 

So do you think it's charging?

[radoran]

you see zach rinaldo turn towards you 8-12 feet away while you are up against the boards with a player on your back...and you would have just said, "pft, who cares, i'm sure this will go just fine, i'm probably not about to get hit. it's just zach rinaldo, renowned for letting up on hits all the time"?

 

Again, as you yourself said - the hit was "unnecessary"

 

And you are absolutely right - there is no legitimate hockey reason for that hit.

 

None. Especially with two seconds left on the clock.

 

It was a penalty. It is a penalty. It will always be a penalty.

 

Note that in saying that there was no legitimate hockey reason for that hit, I fully acknowledge that there are legitimate hockey reasons to deliver hard hits. And there were dozens of legitimate, hard hits in that game.

 

That wasn't one of them.

 

It's not Couturier's fault that Rinaldo committed a penalty.

 

At. All.

 

And I seriously doubt that in the eight tenths of a second that Rinaldo goes twenty feet that Couturier had a real chance to think much of anything. He reacted to the puck going through and the player coming up behind him. If anything, he's trying to make sure that McQuaid - who actually does make hockey-related contact - isn't going to lay him out.

 

I am curious, however: What do you think Couturier "should have done" to "prepare" himself in eight tenths of a second to take Rinaldo's reckless charge?

 

Rinaldo premeditatedly charged Couturier. That's what happened.

 

If you don't think that's suspension-worthy - that's an opinion. It's one I disagree with, but you have every right to have it.

[radoran]

the horror.

 

It was you that said the hit was "unnecessary"

 

That was you.

[radoran]

It says nothing about 4-minute high-sticking double minors for drawing blood either, but we all know that rule. Someone should write the actual NHL rule book according to how things are really called and why.

 

Well, Rule 60.3 disagrees with you

 

 

Double-minor Penalty

- When a player carries or holds any part of

his stick above the shoulders of the opponent so that injury results,

the Referee shall assess a double-minor penalty for all contact that

causes an injury, whether accidental or careless, in the opinion of the

Referee

 

I don't think that one can say if blood is drawn that there is a referee that would say there is "no injury" in his opinion.

[icehole]

i am always amazed by how 2 people can watch the same thing and have completely different views of what happened.

McQuaid's stick and left leg are in contact with Couturier's hip/leg...if i'm Sean that's what i'm worried most about, not Zac Rinaldo 8 to 12 feet away as the buzzer is sounding....

the hit was bullshit, apparently not worthy of a suspension but worthy of a game misconduct. it was opportunistic and not necessary in any real hockey capacity.

I just don't buy that 14 is admiring his pass there...it doesn't fit with the hockey player he has been his whole career.

I know what you mean. No matter what side you are on here, the video is right in front of us to watch. I had, and still have, people telling me the elbow came up before contact. Really?!?!?

It's like people start making stuff up in their own heads.

I believe the only things that are debateable are

1. Was head contact the primary point of contact?

2. Is this considered charging according to the rules.

The other two aspects (elbowing and interference) are pretty clear. Elbow was tucked and the puck is being played.

[ruxpin]

I know what you mean. No matter what side you are on here, the video is right in front of us to watch. I had, and still have, people telling me the elbow came up before contact. Really?!?!?

It's like people start making stuff up in their own heads.

I believe the only things that are debateable are

1. Was head contact the primary point of contact?

2. Is this considered charging according to the rules.

The other two aspects (elbowing and interference) are pretty clear. Elbow was tucked and the puck is being played.

 

And there was a knife.  You can clearly see a knife.

[icehole]

And there was a knife. You can clearly see a knife.

And couturier winked at Rinaldo before he got hit...that was clear.

[aziz]

Again, as you yourself said - the hit was "unnecessary"
 
And you are absolutely right - there is no legitimate hockey reason for that hit.
 
None. Especially with two seconds left on the clock.
 
It was a penalty. It is a penalty. It will always be a penalty.

 

unnecessary, yes.  most hits are.  this one in particular.  there was no hockey related reason to hit the player there.  that doesn't make it illegal.  makes rinaldo a stupid meanie head, but doesn't make the hit illegal.  and, no, that isn't always a penalty.  it is *almost* always a penalty when the receiving player crumples to the ice, *almost* never a penalty if he doesn't.

 

It's not Couturier's fault that Rinaldo committed a penalty.

 

again, the penalty was called because couturier ends up on the ice.  at the moment couturier sees rinaldo heading in his direction, there was no reason for him to assume a hit would be illegal.  not the timing, not the distance, nothing.  that means the moment couturier decides to not do something to protect himself is a moment in which he should have known he was a legitimate target.  it IS his fault for not reacting to that.

 

And I seriously doubt that in the eight tenths of a second that Rinaldo goes twenty feet that Couturier had a real chance to think much of anything. Hereacted to the puck going through and the player coming up behind him. If anything, he's trying to make sure that McQuaid - who actually does make hockey-related contact - isn't going to lay him out.

 

lol, really?  like, 0.8 seconds?  do you have any idea how much can happen in 0.8 seconds?  the average human reaction time is 0.25 seconds.  for professional athletes, it is a good bit lower than that, but whatever.  that leaves more than a half second from when couturier could have started reacting and when the hit actually happened.  way way way more than enough time to present his shoulder to rinaldo, rather than his face.

 

also, how was mcquaid going to lay him out?  they were in contact, had been for the better part of a second, couturier was leaning back into him to protect the puck.  shy of wrapping his arms around couturier and throwing him to the ice or can-opener-ing him, there was nothing dangerous or threatening mcquaid could have done to couturier.

 

I am curious, however: What do you think Couturier "should have done" to "prepare" himself in eight tenths of a second to take Rinaldo's reckless charge?

 

turn his shoulder into the contact, like players do all the time.  that's it, brace for the oncoming check, as opposed to doing nothing at all.  

 

you gotta pick, man, was rinaldo coming from an entire continent away, or was he too close for couturier to have taken some kind of evasive or protective measure?

 

It's one I disagree with, but you have every right to have it.

 

​much appreciated.

[aziz]

It was you that said the hit was "unnecessary"

 

That was you.

 

 

i know.  i'm just still shaken up that a hockey player hit someone for the sake of hitting.  unprecedented.