The Code...

...Is the Worst Part About Hockey

There's a lot about hockey that I love, but a lot of those good things are often overshadowed by the actions of a stupid few. Hockey is a sport that requires a great deal of toughness to play at any level of competitiveness. Racing back to retrieve a dump-in at full speed, all while the opposition's forechecker breathes down your neck, just waiting to crush you into the boards, is not for the faint of heart. The physicality often crosses the line into violence. Every season, there are innumerable incidents in which "dirty" play causes injury, precisely because it's so hard to tread that line without crossing it. Your clean, open ice, hit to the chest was probably just a step, and a couple of inches, away from being an elbow to the head that causes a major injury. Accidental injury is a part of the game. It's possible to commit an infraction without ever intending to. Not every high stick that cuts a player's face open was deliberate, and those types of plays are unavoidable. The real issue stems from what most people would term "cheap shots".

To hear some people tell it, the best way to steer the game away from the cheap shots is to allow the players to police themselves. In this world, all players would abide by The Code. The Code, for those of you that aren't familiar with the term, is a completely ambiguous definition for how to "play the game the right way". I hate The Code. I defy anyone to clearly articulate to me what, exactly, The Code entails, and who, exactly, abides by it. Most of the time, it's about how a fight between two aggrieved parties will prevent any further escalation. Let boys be boys. Except that it doesn't work. And nobody abides by it.

Last night, Dan Carcillo sucker punched Matt Bradley after cross-checking him twice. It was a completely gutless act. Most sensible human beings watch that clip and see Matt Bradley is essentially the victim of assault. After hitting Carcillo, cleanly, both Bradley and Carcillo fall to the ice. Carcillo gets up first and cross-checks Bradley in the back. As Bradley gets up to skate away, Carcillo cross-checks him again. Bradley turns to face him, Carcillo grabs Bradley by the jersey with one hand and sucker punches him with the other. The whole thing happens in about 10 seconds flat. Bradley has zero chance to defend himself. He's starting to take his gloves off to fight, but Carcillo has already cold-cocked him by the time he gets one glove off. For his transgressions, Carcillo received 19 minutes in penalty. The Capitals scored 3 goals on the ensuing power play and won the game going away. Today, the NHL suspended Carcillo for 4 games. And yet, there are people that are defending him.

If you are a masochist, you can try to read through the comments on the video link. There are a surprisingly large number of people that defend Carcillo's actions. Any hockey related website that allows comments will feature a fair share of the same sort of message. The claim goes that Bradley should have been ready to fight, that Carcillo was just defending himself. Carcillo is tough, and Bradley, as YouTube commenter GNR27J puts it "Bradley you are a pussy and had it coming to you". Nice. Somehow, the victim is the problem because he didn't adequately defend himself.

Why is Bradley at fault? Because of The Code. He supposedly should have been ready to defend himself as soon as Carcillo dropped the gloves. Nevermind that Carcillo doesn't actually drop them, he throws them, and that there was no way that Bradley had any way of predicting that Carcillo would lose his marbles that quickly. I could never say it as well as Cedric Daniels does, so I'll let him say it for me.

The problem runs deeper. This whole thing started because Bradley hit Carcillo along the boards. Watch the whole replay: Bradley delivers a clean, hard check and Carcillo loses his mind. He cross-checks him, when Bradley tries to skate away, cross-checks him again, and, finally, just grabs him and sucker punches him. That's how you're supposed to react to a clean hit? This makes Carcillo tough? That is the opposite of tough. If Carcillo was really tough, he'd have shaken it off as part of the game. He took the hit to make the play. That's what someone with real guts would have done.

The players that commit the worst, dirtiest infractions are the same players that are supposedly enforcing the code. What do Marty McSorley and Chris Simon have in common? They're players whose sole role is to fight. If you asked the people that love The Code, those players should be keeping the cheap shots out of the game. And yet, for some strange reason, it's those very players that commit some of the worst acts.

I love hockey, and I'll probably never stop loving it, but things like this make me wonder why we cater so much to the vocal minority. Just because they scream the loudest doesn't mean they're right.