Turns Out The Senators Need Enforcers During Their Inter-squad Scrimmages
Let’s just say that you’re Patrick Sieloff for a second here. You’ve just been traded to the Senators from Calgary over the summer. You’re trying to impress your new team during the first scrimmage of training camp and hopefully land a spot on the roster. Do you
A) blind-side a dude who missed pretty much the entire 2015-16 season with post-concussion syndrome
B) immediately make everyone on the team hate your guts and want to kick your ass?
C) get tossed for the rest of the game for precautionary purposes
D) All Of The Above
Yes. The correct answer is D. It’s almost like the Herb Brooks approach here. No better way to get the team to rally together than by giving them a common enemy to hate. A selfless act, really. He sacrificed himself for the good of the team. Or he’s just a bozo with no self-control and can’t prevent himself from landing an aggressive hit on a player in a vulnerable position at a dangerous part of the ice. Either or.
And the thing is that obviously there are going to be hits in hockey. It’s a contact sport. Collisions are going to happen whether it’s in practice or a game or whenever. That’s just the way it goes. But when you’re playing against your own guys, maybe think about using your brain for a minute. There are ways to knock guys off the puck without having to send them into next week. Example A) Malkin on Crosby during the Worlds.
So I’m sure that Sieloff feels awful about the hit and awful that Clarke MacArthur now has to deal with yet another concussion. But it’s not like the reaction from Bobby Ryan and Chris Neil weren’t completely justified.
You can tell that Adam Russell is Hockey Twitter through and through. One of those “if you enjoy watching fights in hockey, you’re a neanderthal” kind of guys. Sorry, dink, but hockey needs enforcers. And Bobby Ryan, who apparently didn’t have enough grit to make Team USA, is well aware of that. Just another shining example of why hockey players are the best teammates in all of sports. While football players are trying to fight against America just to get on the cover of TIME Magazine, hockey players are fighting for each other. The team, the team, the team.