Violence still an issue for NHL

Associated Press

BOSTON

Two players made two bad decisions in an instant, something that happens fairly often in the NHL. Boston’s Nathan Horton watched his pass an instant too long, and Vancouver’s Aaron Rome checked him an instant too late.

Both players’ seasons ended in that instant during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. Horton dropped to the ice, apparently unconscious on his back with his eyes open and his gloved right hand reaching up frighteningly into empty space, while Rome was sent to the Canucks’ dressing room under a vicious cascade of boos from Bruins fans.

The NHL is a volatile cocktail of big men with sticks skating swiftly over a confined ice surface, and those elements collided with devastating impact in the sport’s biggest showcase Monday night.

Horton is out for the rest of the NHL’s championship round with a severe concussion, and Rome received a four-game suspension — the longest in Stanley Cup Final history — beginning with the pivotal Game 4 tonight.

“There’s no fun to this,” said Mike Murphy, the NHL executive in charge of discipline for the series. “There’s no enjoyment to this. Nobody wins in this. Everybody loses. The fans lose. We lost two good hockey players.”

Hockey cultivates and even condones violence — fighting is still allowed, after all — yet still struggles to agree on standards to control it. The line between legally aggressive play and dirty tactics is minuscule, and it’s almost impossible to see in an instant.

Most coaches and players agree the NHL is trying. Concussion awareness has grown tremendously in recent years, with new rules and a safety protocol instituted to protect players from blindside hits and head shots.

Yet several prominent players, including Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby, Nashville’s Matthew Lombardi and Boston’s own high-scoring forward, Marc Savard, still have been seriously hurt by hits of wildly varying legality. Reports of concussions are rising even while dangerous hits diminish.