‘Had to pay the price’: Islanders’ Simon suspended for NHL-record 25 games
Simon suspended minimum of 25 games
Simon Two-Hands Hollweg Mar 8, 2007 (video)
NEW YORK — If Chris Simon plays again for the New York Islanders, or for anyone else in the NHL, it won’t be until next season…. The NHL hit back hard Sunday, suspending the rugged Islanders forward for a league-record 25 games. Simon will miss the rest of the regular season and playoffs as punishment for his two-handed stick attack to the face of Ryan Hollweg of the New York Rangers in a 2-1 loss Thursday night. Simon will miss the Islanders’ final 15 regular-season contests and the entire postseason, if the club gets that far. If the team plays fewer than 10 playoff games this year, the suspension will carry over to next season….”I think what he got was pretty much expected around the league and by everybody else,” Hollweg said Sunday after the Rangers’ 2-1 win over Carolina. “What’s done is done. The league has made its decision and it’s time to move forward now. I think it’s fair.”
I’ve never been a fan of fighting in hockey, and I’m even less enamored of plain old thuggery and criminal brutality. Chris Simon’s stick-swinging assault on the New York Rangers’ Ryan Hollweg was the sort of thing that would earn some serious jail time in the off-ice civilian world. Simon, who swung at and connected with Hollweg’s face, could have done some serious damage. Hollweg was lucky to escape with a gash and a sore nose. Simon, a marginally-talented player who has managed to make an NHL career for himself largely because of his pugnacity, finds his reputation and his career permanently (and deservedly) tarnished by one stupid act, one moment where he simply snapped and did something the can neither take back nor justify.
Simon’s thuggery appeared to be retaliation for a tough, but clean, hit from Hollweg that sent him hard into the side boards. It was a hit no different from the dozens of hard, clean hits that occur during every NHL game. For some reason, Simon just snapped, and now Chris Simon will be forever and deservedly associated with Todd Bertuzzi, who ended Steve Moore’s career with a vicious assault. Bertuzzi’s hit on Moore would likely have earned him a 10-15 year prison sentence if it had occurred off the ice. Simon’s would have also earned him some hard time as well.
Personally, I’d like to see Simon banned from the NHL, as Bertuzzi should have been. Forunately, Ryan Hollweg’s career was never in jeopardy, but he’s a very lucky man. He could well have ended up like Steve Moore, who will never play NHL hockey again. Simon’s 25 games is a severe penalty, yet it still seems horribly inadequate. Swinging a hockey stick baseball-style at another player’s face is an act of criminality that should warrant much more than a 25-game suspension. This criminal behavior can have no place in a professional sports league, and the relative slap on the wrist the NHL has doled out to Simon seems inadequate for sending the message the league should be sending.
Hockey’s a violent game that often rides the sharp edge separating choreographed chaos from legalized assault. Part of the game’s beauty is it’s violent, often borderline brutal nature. Nonetheless, actions like Chris Simon’s cannot and should not be tolerated under ANY circumstances. If it takes banning Simon from the NHL to get the point across to the league’s players, then so be it. If the NHL hopes to rebound from it’s current minor-league economic status, the league (and Commissioner Gary Bettman) must demonstrate that it will not tolerate thuggery and criminal behavior in the name of entertainment.
