Guess The Suspension: Chris Simon (Again)

Guess The Suspension: Chris Simon (Again) – FanHouse – AOL Sports Blog:

Sometimes, you honestly wonder what’s going through a player’s brain when you see things like this.

Ultimately Jarkko Ruutu, the second-most annoying man in hockey, wasn’t hurt, but imagine the potential consequences of something like this? That alone is why we may not see Chris Simon playing all that much going forward,

Short answer: the player’s brain is basically offline when things like this happen. If you’ve ever been in a berserker rage, or around someone who is, it’s obvious that thinking is the last thing on their minds.

I’ve been one of the few who thought Simon got somewhat of a raw deal on his last suspension — it was clear he was concussed by the hit, and yet his retaliation was severely punished but the hit that caused his injury wasn’t. In this case, though, there’s no real middle ground to cut him any slack. It was pre-mediated, it was not during play, it was against a completely unaware and vulnerable player, and it was completely unnecessary.

I expect it’s going to push just about every one of Colin Campbell’s buttons — and it should. This goes up in a class of unacceptable behavior along with Bertuzzi (on Moore), Marty McSorley (on Brashear), Wayne Maki (on Ted Green) and Bobby Clarke (purposefully breaking that Russian’s ankle).

Also given Simon’s history as a repeat offender — almost completely deserved — I can’t seen Campbell showing much sympathy.

If you ask me — Simon is suspended for the rest of the season, and doing so would effectively end his career. Like McSorley, he’s close to the end as it is. An action like this should practically speaking usher him out the door.

Too bad, too. Chris Simon was always a player I respected (mostly) — he made the most of limited talent and turned himself not into a “real” hockey player, not just a bully. He also (not a small thing) made himself a role model of sorts for the First Nations people.

Unfortunately, where other, similar players (George Laraques and Donald Brashear come to mind) took this same path and made the transition to “real” hockey player by leveraging their aggression and working on their skills AND controlling their temper, Simon never quite had the temper under control, and ultimately going to push him out of this league early and leave him with a tainted legacy.

Jordin Tootoo should be paying close attention here, because he’s walking the same path as these players, and he shows signs of choosing to follow Simon down the path he followed.

I feel bad for Simon in a way, because he really could have closed his career and left people thinking well of him. Instead, I expect Campbell to throw the book at him (he should, and I hope he will), and so Simon will be remembered more for his mistakes than his play.

And that’s only Simon’s fault. Sigh.

Colin, send him home. This is the kind of action that the league needs to send a message over.

Update: 30 games. I guess I can live with that. I still would have preferred to see him go away for the season and have to ask for reinstatement, not just to make the point this can’t be allowed, but because he HAS a long record of problems.

And one report I read today (CBC, I think) noted he was entering the alcohol and substance abuse program. Sad, but not surprising. For now, I”ll leave it as hoping that Chris can figure this out and solve it — and if that allows him to play hockey again some day, even better, but now, it’s time for him to focus on himself.

The Hockey News: Headlines: Chris Simon receives 30-game suspension, longest in NHL history:

Chris Simon was slapped with the longest suspension for an on-ice in NHL history Wednesday and will lose close to US$300,000 in wages.

And it could have been worse. An eighth career NHL suspension suggests that Simon may not have learned his lesson but the league decided that 30 games was sufficient.

“(NHL executive) Mike Murphy and I were talking about that fact – has he given up his right or his privilege to play in the National Hockey League?” league disciplinarian Colin Campbell said Wednesday.

But in the end, after much thought and deliberation, Campbell felt he had the right number, especially combined with the counselling Simon will seek out.

Update 2: just to make sure this is in the same place as my comment above….

On the Islanders Beat:

Asked about Simon’s agreement with Islanders owner Charles Wang to seek counseling in an effort to understand what made him snap for the second time in nine months after hitting the Rangers’ Ryan Hollweg with his stick in March, Campbell was recorded saying he hoped it would help Simon to meet with “the drug and alcohol, uh, uh, those doctors.” NHL spokesman Frank Brown quickly clarified that the doctors who deal with substance abuse under the NHL/NHLPA agreement also handle behavioral issues.

But the “stereotyping” horse was out of the barn.

So we shouldn’t assume that the problem is substance oriented. But of course, I did, and here’s the clarification

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