Sergei Belski-Imagn Images
I have to admit I almost started laughing out loud when Joel Farabee of the Philadelphia Flyers threw off his gloves in an attempt to fight Blake Coleman of the Calgary Flames Saturday night in the NHL.
Farabee wanted to get at Coleman because Coleman had the temerity to apply a bodycheck to Flyers’ star Travis Konecny.
Coleman turned down the invitation, but it just goes to show you how ridiculous this need to respond to every perceived slight has become in the NHL.
Hey guys, going after players who have just made clean hits isn’t courageous. It’s not noble. It’s stupid. You see, the NHL allows for body contact, and sometimes, it results in big hits. Sometimes, guys get hurt. Sometimes, as we saw on Monday with the New York Islanders’ Alexander Romanov and the Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon, a player tries to lay the body on their opponent’s top center but gets the receiving end of a hit instead.
But a player should never, ever have to ‘answer the bell’ in response to a clean hit. This is something that has found its way into the game over the past 10 to 15 years, and it goes against everything that makes hockey unique.
Here’s why in today’s video:
(Can’t see the video? Click here.)
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