Wouldn’t it be fantastic to see a young team, build through the youth system more so than through a very rich owner, win the title for a change? When was the last time that actually happened? It would be a breathe of fresh air and might, just might, encourage other teams to adopt a similar approach of youth policy rather than the checkbook though I wouldn’t hold out much hope when reports already seem pretty confident that Manchester City will break the bank in order to buy their way to the top this summer. Of course, it’s hard to begrudge Man City fans a bit of glory regardless of how it comes given what they have put up with the past fifteen years or so, but I can’t help but back the Arsenal way.

Arsenal are a curious case, for at least three times this season that I can recall they have lost a game or two in close succession an the pundits and experts have ruled them out of the title. In fact, on more than one occasion the argument has taken place of whether Wenger is the right man for Arsenal and whether his policy of youth and little spending is realistic in 21st century Football. It usually happens after a shock defeat to a smaller team who have kicked them off the park. Some people even called for change. Even I was a doubter halfway through the season when it looked like they might fall short of a trophy yet again with United and Chelsea moving clear, as much out of frustration at the same teams winning rather than anything else. Of course, somehow - in part due to nobody actually being very good this year - they have hung in there and suddenly find themselves top of the table and in with a shout of the championship. Of course, they could yet finish with nothing and again criticism of Wenger’s approach will rear its ugly head heading into the summer, but if they can actually pull out all the stops and win the title, Wenger would cement his place as a genius of Football management.

Liverpool can do them a big favor by beating United tomorrow when they play their game in hand, while Chelsea travel to Blackburn in search of an almost guaranteed three points. That’ll put them back ahead of Arsenal but it’ll keep the championship race incredibly close with little more than a half dozen or so games to play.

Unfortunately here in Canada I don’t get to see many races and this was another. Television coverage of cycling is dire, yet Sports stations such as TSN, Sportsnet and The Score show a ridiculous amount of poker during the day. I love a good game of poker but it isn’t a sport, certainly not with some brilliant cycling races are taking place around the world. Would it be too much for these channels to fill an hour or two during the day by covering some high end, elite sporting events? Outdoor Life Network covers the Tour de France, but that is it. There is nothing on the Giro or the Tour of Spain and if I am to see any of it I’ll have to subscribe to Cycling TV online. Shame they don’t have a physical television because I’d be a member tomorrow.

Come on TSN, Sportsnet etc. pick up some real world class sport, I’m betting you’d be surprised at the ratings.

Eddie Irvine would have been 1999 world champion under the 2010 points system and if the new 25-18-15-12-8-6-4-2-1 scoring system had been in place since 1950, Alain Prost would have won seven world titles, Michael Schumacher only six and James Hunt wouldn’t have been champion at all.

— F1 Racing, March 2010

Take a look:

1964: Graham Hill champion, not John Surtees

1965: Graham Hill champion, not Jim Clark

1976: Niki Lauda champion, not James Hunt

1981: Carlos Reutemann champion, not Nelson Piquet

1983: Alain Prost champion, not Nelson Piquet

1984: Alain Prost champion, not Niki Lauda

1988: Alain Prost champion, not Ayrton Senna

1994: Damon Hill champion, not Michael Schumacher

1999: Eddie Irvine champion, not Mika Hakkinen

Now I’m sure Alain Prost is sitting at home thinking “what if,” while Nelson Piquet would likely be against these current changes due to what it would have done to his career!

The pinstripes that run the game have had a nightmare month with cheap shop, late hit, blindside hit one after another leaving players injured, fans enraged and a disciplinary committee so confused that they are currently working out their arse from their elbow before proceeding. One bad hit warrants two games, another blindside shot is deemed clean and then, last night, a brutal assault warrants 8 games. It is almost as if they see an incident, get together, close the shades on the office windows, get drunk and then reach into a hat and pull out a number to decide the amount of games to suspend the player for. And in no instance does the number appear to sit well with anyone. How long must it go on before someone leaves the ice on a stretcher and ends up lying on a mortuary slab?

Tonight’s game has already resulted in a fight involving Matt Cooke - the man the entire city of Boston wants hung from the rafters of the arena, drawn behind the Bruins team bus and then quartered by Zdeno Chara. Cooke was the offending player who cut down Bruin’s star Marc Savard with a blindside hit last week leaving Savard in a darkened room for many days following the incident. See below.

Cooke somehow escaped a suspension only to find himself in the thick of tonight’s game. Rightfully, he stepped up to the plate tonight and took his share of fists to the face from Bruin’s enforcer Scott Thornton hence settling the score - or so we hope.

Last night it was the turn of James Wisniewski to be the NHL’s daily bad guy when he skated at a speed of about 30 mph before launching himself into the head of Blackhawks stud defenseman Brent Seabrook, sandwiching Seabrook’s head between the boards and his elbows. For a moment after the hit Seabrook stood still, almost like he had literally been plastered to the boards, before his eyes rolled back into his head and like some drunk who has finally had his last tipple, dropped onto his back, out for the count. Mayhem rightly ensued as everyone dropped the gloves and proceeded to hug one another while Seabrook came to his senses. For his handy work Wisniewski was suspended 8 games, though if it were up to me he’d be gone for the year. It was a filthy play.

Of course you’ll probably have noticed the hit that lead into the Wisniewski incident. Seabrook himself threw a questionable hit to Corey Perry but from my view it probably deserved nothing than a minor penalty, perhaps even a game misconduct if you really wanted to push the ball out. Seabrook caught Corey Perry as he was spinning around from making a pass and the hit threw him awkwardly into the boards. But it was certainly a hit that deserved Seabrook to be brought to task on … with a fight. Wisniewski, if he felt has team-mate had been unfairly treated should have dropped his mitts, skated up to Seabrook and started fighting - isn’t that why fighting is in the game, to allow the players to police such incidents? The great and the good of ‘old-time-hockey’ have said the reason Wisniewski didn’t start fighting was because of the instigator rule that would have seen Wisniewski thrown from the game for starting the fight. “In the old days, Bob Probert would have appeared on the scene and pounded the life out of that guy without repremand.” My counter argument to that is that we see good clean hits on a weekly basis in the NHL which are followed by a fight in which the guy throwing the good clean hit suddenly has to defend himself. Punishing the instigator extra is generally okay and it would have been fair had Wisniewski started a fight on this occasion, but what possessed Wisniewski to think that trying to put Seabrook into the fifth row of the stands was a better idea can only be answered by examining the inside to Wisniewski’s head? Instead of instigating a fight to defend a team-mate and perhaps getting a game misconduct, Wisniewski decided to run a defenseless player in a much more cowardly way and pick up the eight game suspension.

Dirty physical play has always been in the game, but in the age of television were numerous cameras are at every single arena - every single incident is picked up from many angles and in the age of multi-sports channels, you can be sure every incident will be scrutinized to the nth degree. It’s not good for the NHL, but they asked for this kind of television coverage and must now reap the benefits of the television coverage that has also brought with it the exposure of the games ugly side. Then again, it isn’t like this is the first season of television coverage, yet it does seem like there has been more questionable head-shots than in any season I can remember. It isn’t the eliminating of these kind of hits that matters though … for they are trying to do that as I type and head shots to unsuspecting, defenseless players, such as Marc Savard will not be accepted from next season on … but rather it is the punishment for throwing dirty hits or charging 60 feet down the ice to plant your elbows into an opponents skull that needs addressed. Until players and in bigger respects - teams - get properly punished they won’t feel the need to cut it out.

The NHL needs to take the ‘book’ and start throwing it around a little.

Suspend a player for 2 games and he’ll head home to the family for an extended holiday. Suspend him for four and he’ll hit the beach and perhaps feel bad about himself. Suspend him for ten or more - nobody will miss him - and it’ll make him and others think twice about making a filthy play. Would Wisniewski have done what he done had he known he would get 10+ games? He was shocked and somewhat upset that he even got 8 games. Punishing the teams themselves however might go even further to eradicating dirty play.

Why should a team be too concerned about a third line player getting suspended for two or three games or even eight, when they can just bring someone else in to fill the gaps. Should teams be fined heavily? Should they have a million dollars stripped off their cap limit for the following season for every 3 games worth of suspensions incurred? Should the coach be suspended also? Perhaps if the coach was made to sit out of the team were stripped of cap cash the coach and the management would very quick to come down hard on their players even thinking of doing something idiotic rather than jump to their defence when its their own players and point the finger when it’s someone elses player?

One idea I like is the gap in the roster if a player is suspended. If player ‘X’ is out for five games then the team cannot replace him in the line-up for five games … they must play a man short. That would quickly hurt a team and it would force them to work harder on their own players self control.

It isn’t that I don’t love physical Hockey … I do. I love it and I love it when it is done right. I don’t like to see a player stretchered off the ice like Marc Savard when there was nothing he could have done to avoid it. If however he is stretchered off for a good clean and proper Hockey hit to separate him from he puck, then that is just part of the game. An example is Alex Ovechkin…

Now, not to hold up Alexander Ovechkin as the beakon of correctness in the NHL for he to is serving a suspension for a questionable hit from behind earlier in the week, but he also often shows us how you indeed should apply a good hit in the NHL. In the example below Jaromir Jagr feels the force of Ovechkin’s shoulder to his jaw when he carries the puck across centre ice with his head down in a good clean north/south collision that Jagr could have avoided had he been more aware.

This kind of hit takes skill to throw also and it’s exactly how you should do it whether it be to change the momentum of a game - as Ovechkin used it for in this case - or serve as retribution for an earlier dirty play. If it’s for retribution and you aren’t going to fight him, at least give him something like Ovechkin gave to Jagr. Maybe someday we’ll be talking about such hits to Seabrook for a questionable hit rather than the kind of hit Seabrook had to absorb this time out, though that day won’t come until the NHL gets consistent with it’s punishment and cracks down hard.

Firstly, the Ovechkin incident.

Had Campbell fallen sideways into the boards Ovechkin might have been okay but what done him was the angle. Ovechkin shoved Campbell form behind and Campbell could no longer keep his feet. Shoving an opponent from behind is a big no-no. The game does move at incredible speeds though so it is so touch and go for the players. I don’t think Ovechkin intended to injury Campbell but he screwed up and might have been better in hindsight to not try anything if he couldn’t get the shoulder to Campbell.

I love Ovechkin, but the two game suspension was about right.

Now Downie on Crosby

I’m sorry but there’s not much wrong here at all, other than perhaps a holding penalty. Downie looks like he is trying to rub Crosby into the boards, but loses his balance at the crucial moment and pulls him down as he is falling. Crosby lands awkwardly and as such is left in pain. A bad fall … not a dirty play. If you trip someone and they fall badly and break a collarbone, is it suddenly worse than a regular trip?