Hockey fights: the 5.5555555…% solution

By Colby Cosh - Friday, September 30, 2011 - 11 Comments

I’m someone who has been fairly tolerant of the status quo when it comes to hockey fighting, so it might surprise you to hear I have a quik-‘n’-EZ answer to eliminating it. Hockey great/political not-so-great Ken Dryden appears in ESPN piffle-factory Grantland.com today with some intelligent, if stale, reflections on the relationship between head injuries and the game we adore. Dryden goes into nostalgia mode, as the camera dissolves to a shot of the Habs battling the Flyers in the old Forum, and he writes:

Once, hockey players did their own fighting. An elbow to the nose or a slash on the arm, and — big or small, good fighter or not — a player had to right his own wrong. Most players were bad fighters. On their skates, they wrestled, slipped, and flung themselves around. It was vaudeville. Now most fights are between designated fighters. Each such fighter knows what he’s doing, and though usually well-matched enough to be able to protect themselves, these fighters are also skilled enough to hurt each other.

This description is verifiably accurate; it’s not romantic nonsense. What Dryden is describing is specialization. The burden of fighting has almost entirely been taken away from otherwise talented players and loaded onto big SOBs who can’t do anything else well. Which, frankly, takes a lot of the fun out of it, and makes the fighting seem more like a distracting artificial appurtenance.

What change in the game might have accommodated this increasing specialization? The very obvious candidate that almost nobody mentions (though it’s a favourite of Roy MacGregor and of hockey bloggers Tom Benjamin and Tyler Dellow) is increasing roster size. If Dryden had ransacked his memory, he might have recalled that hockey teams weren’t allowed to dress 20 people when he played. In the 1960s, as he was stopping pucks for the Junior B Etobicoke Indians and the Cornell Big Red, the figure was 16 skaters and two goalies. It wasn’t increased to 17+2 until he was already a Canadien, or to 18+2 until he was a lawyer.

Many or most of the true goons in the league are frequently healthy-scratched from games and left to rot in the press box, as things already stand. It’s clear enough that if an 18th player were cut from NHL rosters, the loser would, in many cases, be the “designated fighter”. We know this may be so because, as Dryden hints, the DF didn’t appear in the game until around the time the 18th player was added. The goon’s degree of specialization has, over time, become extreme, like that of a punter in football—and it’s worth noting that we do see football teams doing without punters sometimes, in order to open up a roster spot for some other less esoteric specialist.

The DF is in the game because there is just enough room on rosters for a player with a talent that is radically uncorrelated to the skills the game is designed to express. And without a certain critical mass of DFs, there is no use having one around; they no longer, like Dave Semenko, skate on the same lines as young players who need protection. Their confrontations are staged separate from the real hockey—a tacit admission of their irrelevance to game outcomes (if the substantial absence of fighting from the playoffs weren’t proof enough).

I once imagined we might have seen the advent of the shootout specialist in that 18th roster slot by now. Shootout ability, in contrast with the ability to fight, could not possibly have higher leverage in determining game outcomes. But the shootout—contrary to the complaints of its detractors—turns out to, by and large, reward offensive skills germane to the game’s essence; the guys who are good on the SO are mostly the guys who are pretty decent at scoring anyway.

But even if the shootout were likely to pull particular players into the league who cannot otherwise compete, what players would those be?—ones with devastatingly accurate shots, beautiful decoy moves, creativity, and flair? How loudly could a fan reasonably complain about that? As it is, we’re instead dragging players into the NHL who excel at violence, and it’s not even the graceful violence of a well-executed hip check.

'Thank you'

By Philippe Gohier - Thursday, May 5, 2011 at 2:54 PM - 31 Comments

Ken Dryden deals with defeat.

On Tuesday, he woke early in defeat. He grabbed one of his red campaign signs, pasted a message on it, then drove to the corner of Bathurst St. and Wilson Ave., where he held the sign and waved at passing cars. The message was two words long: “Thank you.”
'I want my Canada back'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 29, 2011 at 7:44 PM - 32 Comments

Ken Dryden’s speech to the Liberal rally in Toronto two nights ago.

Michael Ignatieff’s remarks are here.
What we're getting wrong

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, March 14, 2011 at 10:29 AM - 3 Comments

Ken Dryden wonders how we’ll look back on the present violence in hockey and football.

The voices of the future will not be kind to us about how we understood and dealt with head injuries in sports. They will ask: How is it possible we didn’t know, or chose not to know?

For players or former players, owners, managers, coaches, doctors and team doctors, league executives, lawyers, agents, the media, players’ wives, partners and families, it’s no longer possible not to know and not to be afraid, unless we willfully close our eyes.
The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 29, 2010 at 12:07 AM - 2 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…
The hockey by-election

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 4:37 PM - 34 Comments

The Liberals have decided to counter Don Cherry‘s endorsement of Julian Fantino in Vaughan with a Ken Dryden endorsement of Tony Genco.

Cherry‘s Boston Bruins met Dryden‘s Montreal Canadiens in 1977 and 1978 Stanley Cup finals and the 1979 semi-finals—Dryden backstopping the Habs to victory each time.
A day of debate

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 26, 2010 at 1:09 PM - 6 Comments

Debate concerning the Bloc’s motion on the Afghan mission begins here and, after a break for Question Period, resumes here. Notable speeches include those of the Foreign Affairs Minister, the Defence Minister, Bob Rae, Jack Harris, Claude Bachand and the incomparable Ken Dryden.
The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 3:08 PM - 10 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…
The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 4:29 PM - 4 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…
A mutually destructive relationship

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 9, 2010 at 4:35 PM - 22 Comments

Two weeks ago, Ken Dryden lamented for the press gallery, leading Susan Delacourt to lament for Mr. Dryden’s tone, which apparently prompted Mr. Dryden to respond.

You see the country; you talk to people; you are in the incredibly privileged position of being able to knock on almost any door, phone up almost anybody, and have them talk to you about what they’re doing, feeling, hoping. My point is that political reporting, for the most part, day-to-day, whether because of dictate, habit, tradition, evolved instinct, ease – I don’t know why – doesn’t reflect this. Instead, it’s about Harper charges this, Ignatieff complains that, and as much as we – politicians and political media – find all this fascinating, most Canadians do not. Who’s to blame is not the point. I think, in fact, we – politicians and political media – bring out the worst in each other.

Unrelatedly, but relatedly, Jeff Jedras sighs in all directions.
The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, November 7, 2010 at 8:05 PM - 2 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…
The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 31, 2010 at 5:43 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…
All is politics

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 29, 2010 at 5:00 PM - 0 Comments

Ken Dryden laments for the press gallery.

Political writers, almost irresistibly, make everything about politics, and for the great majority of Canadians the conversation dies. The tone of political stories is so grim; so transactional and cynical. This book is about Canada. It is about us, and what we have in us to be. Ours is a big, exciting story. The people at the events in Ottawa and Montreal got that. The people who wrote blurbs on the cover of the book – Canadians who have lived intense Canadian lives and expressed Canada in their work – they get it too.

Susan Delacourt responds.
Kicking television

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 1:41 PM - 0 Comments

Ken Dryden laments for the squawk box.

“When interaction is based on punchlines, we get nowhere,” Dryden says. He cites the example of the political panels on TV, in which partisans are seen to excel if they hold their ground and repeat their talking points until the segment is over.

“The only meaning that comes across is the conflict. What’s the message of that five-minute interaction between five people? It doesn’t have to do with the subject; it has to do with the conflict.”
The last man who believes in something

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 25, 2010 at 12:17 PM - 0 Comments

Liberal MP, and touring author, Ken Dryden makes a statement in the House.

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago I visited the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre in my riding. Among other things, the centre offers programs for children with suspected mental health problems and their parents. I sat around with some of the mothers and asked them why they were there.

Most of them are new to Canada, their own mothers live far away, no family and no mentors around, and this is their first child. Those 10 new things that happen every day in a child’s life, why? Is this normal? Is this a problem? What should they do? They learn from the staff and they learn from each other. They have made friends. Their children have made friends. They feel comfortable. They feel at home.

If anyone ever for a moment wonders why governments can matter, why taxes can matter, why cutting is not the answer to everything; if anybody ever for a moment wants to know why multiculturalism in some countries struggles and why this multicultural Canada works, go to Hincks-Dellcrest. It is inspiring.
The Backbench Top Ten

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 1:31 PM - 0 Comments

Our weekly, and wholly arbitrary, ranking of the ten most worthy, or at least entertaining, MPs, excluding the Prime Minister, cabinet members and party leaders. A celebration of all that is great and ridiculous about the House of Commons. Last week’s rankings appear in parentheses. Continue…
Harper’s hard right turn

By Paul Wells - Friday, March 19, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 465 Comments

Social conservatism is on the rise in Ottawa, and across Canada

Photograph by Chris Wattie/ Reuters

It says in all the papers the well has run dry. The commentators keep writing that Canadian conservatism has died on the vine, that four years into his reign of tactical obsession and fiscal profligacy, Stephen Harper has forgotten why he ever went into politics.

“Where’s the big, strategic agenda for the next election?” John Ivison quoted a senior Conservative in the National Post. “I haven’t found one yet.” In the same paper, Terence Corcoran ran a string of columns identifying programs the feds should cut, because Harper seems unwilling to do the work himself. And Andrew Coyne delivered his annual post-budget verdict of despair and mourning. “Those Conservative faithfuls who have been hanging on all these years, in the hopes that, eventually, someday, with one of these budgets, this government would start to act like conservatives, must now understand that that is not going to happen. Conservatism is not just dead but, it appears, forgotten.”

But it’s a funny thing. If Canadian conservatism is dead, somebody forgot to tell Canadian conservatives.

Continue…
The Commons: Lights on, nobody home

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 25, 2010 at 7:46 PM - 43 Comments

For the record, the doors were, in fact, locked. The House of Commons, all lit up, was empty and quiet. At worst, a betrayal of our democracy, a grievous symbol of Parliament’s decline. At best, a minor waste of electricity.

In the morning, the Liberal and NDP caucuses had taken turns standing in front of the Commons in order to demonstrate their similar frustrations. Michael Ignatieff took the opportunity to propose a number of reforms that might ensure we never have to witness these sorts of photo ops again. The press gallery took that opportunity to express its confusion and impatience with infinitely debatable complications of constitutional law.

By the afternoon, things had quieted down some. Continue…
Monday Caption Challenge No. 2

By Scott Feschuk - Monday, December 7, 2009 at 7:16 AM - 41 Comments

UPDATED: and the winner is…

UPDATE: In future, I plan to again – and perhaps permanently – resort to democracy to resolve the caption challenge, but this week I am happily siding with the mob and conferring victory upon DanielBlouin. If ever there were an entry that fit the criterion of “funny cuz it’s true,” this is it. Well played, sir. Please flip me an email at scott.feschuk@macleans.rogers.com and I’ll dispatch your prize via the infotainment highway.

And a REMINDER: Queries for the Tuesday Mailbag on Wednesday can be sent to that same email address or placed in the comments below this post. Several questions already this week about relationships and personal matters. I’m like Ann Landers without the moustache.

•

Hey, look – it’s world-famous Liberal MP, and former hockey player of some kind, Ken Dryden. He’s on the ice as part of the Montreal Canadiens’ 100^th anniversary celebrations, which – by my rough estimate – have been going on for the past 40 years (or does it just feel that way?)

Your mission: make with the funny.

* The winner of each week’s caption challenge, as declared by a jury of me (or, on occasion, a guest juror of considerable wit and Internet access), shall receive a prize valued in the tens of dollars. And not just dollars but Canadian dollars (aka the good kind of dollars). You’re welcome.
Deleted scenes (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 23, 2009 at 1:24 PM - 3 Comments

A bit of this is in the story itself, but here’s an extended version of Ken Dryden’s assessment.

I think the current situation is basically the same it was six months and probably pretty much the same as it was the last few years. The public has been saying to us for some time that we want to know what you’re about. we want to know how you see the country and what a Liberla government would do.

That’s what the public is waiting for and we haven’t given them that answer yet. The other day, when Michael gave his speech on the day of the non-confidence motion, I thought he laid out a really strong case for an absence of confidence in this government. What has to happen next is to lay out a strong case as to why the public should have confidence in us. I think that’s yet to be done…

I think in the last number of years we’ve been too tactical. What are those things that we believe in? What are those things that make us proud? What are those things that matter to Canadians?

I only saw this research paper after the story had been written, but the exit poll data and demographics therein—and the discussion of Liberal electoral fortunes this decade—are probably quite relevant.
The Commons: A return to the natural order of things

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 7:11 PM - 23 Comments

The Scene. “Our responsibility is to provide an opposition and an alternative government for Parliament and for Canadians,” a wise leader of Her Majesty’s official opposition said some years ago. “What the government has to do, if it wants to govern for any length of time, is it must appeal primarily to the third parties in the House of Commons to get them to support it.”

And so it was that today, in its own particular and perhaps peculiar way, Parliament returned to its natural state.

“Mr. Speaker,” said Michael Ignatieff at the outset of Question Period, “in Canada we have a government that does not believe in government.”

So it was, of course, that the Liberal leader had, hours earlier, filed official notice of the official opposition’s lack of belief in the party that presently forms government. He did in nine words—”That this House has lost confidence in the government”—what no Liberal leader in more than two decades has dared do.

“Which does not protect the jobs of today,” Mr. Ignatieff continued, “which does not create the jobs of tomorrow, that does not protect the technology made in Canada, which does not protect the health of the most vulnerable and does not protect our health care system when it is attacked in the United States. When will this government admit that its ideology is to weaken the ability of the Government of Canada to protect Canadians?”

The Prime Minister stood then and reached for reasonableness. Continue…
Still waiting on that hockey book

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, August 10, 2009 at 8:01 PM - 12 Comments

A very important detail in John Geddes’ 2006 profile of Ian Davey, Michael Ignatieff’s new chief of staff.

As his father’s son, Davey might be expected to be a classic political operator. But he doesn’t quite fit the mould. He isn’t a lawyer or a lobbyist, but a Toronto TV producer, whose credits include programs like September 1972, a two-hour documentary on the epic Canada-Russia hockey summit series.

So Mr. Ignatieff’s side now has Canada’s winning goaltender and the producer of a documentary on the Summit Series. Surely Mr. Harper will now be compelled to fill out the recent vacancies in his office with Phil Esposito and the ghost of Foster Hewitt.
The Commons: Stephen Harper's real world

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 6:55 PM - 53 Comments

The Scene. Stephen Harper is not one to leave well enough alone. So having spoken hopefully of his government’s plans to build parking spaces in the Toronto suburbs, a pedestrian overpass in Surrey and a library in Weymouth, his voice switched to a more ominous tone and his pointy finger started wagging near the bottom of the television screen.

He took direct aim at the Liberal leader, informing the viewing public that his rival had vowed “unequivocally” to raise taxes—news that will surely come as some surprise to even Mr. Ignatieff. He bemoaned the boogie men and women of the opposition who continue to insist their majority of seats in the House of Commons holds sway over his 37 per cent mandate. And he warned that only “needless political instability” could harm us now.

The Prime Minister does like to make dramatic-sounding pronouncements. Take, for instance, that moment in late September when he said “the only way” the country would fall into recession was if we were collectively crazy enough to choose Stephane Dion over him. Or that editorial, published on election day a few weeks later, when, with the stock market gone wobbly, he vowed “never” to take the country back into deficit.

Of course, you’ll forgive him if those assertions now seem a bit silly. Indeed, it is entirely unfair to impose the consistency of actual reality on Mr. Harper. A bit like asking Al Pacino to play the same character in every one of his movies. Though perhaps that’s a bad example. Continue…
The Commons: And so Stephen Harper finds himself in agreement with the Toronto Star

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 6:18 PM - 25 Comments

The Scene. Relaxing in the moments before Question Period, Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper looked across the aisle and nodded at each other—the Prime Minister no doubt recognizing the man opposite as the guy in all those bootlegged VHS tapes he’s been watching.

A short while later, Chuck Strahl, the Indian Affairs Minister, strolled across the aisle and engaged the leader of the opposition in what seemed a friendly conversation. Though the substance of the discussion was unclear, by all appearances Mr. Strahl understood clearly the words that were coming out of Mr. Ignatieff’s mouth.

As demonstrations of bipartisan collegiality, these were heartening scenes. As demonstrations of human ability, they were important clarifiers. Indeed, if these moments are any example, let there be no question that government and opposition do acknowledge and, at least passably, comprehend each other, whatever misconceptions today’s asking of questions and airing of accusations may have left you with. Continue…
Sports analogies

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 5:45 PM - 10 Comments

From QP this afternoon.

Hon. Ken Dryden (York Centre, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, as sports fans, the Prime Minister and the finance minister know the axiom that records are made to be broken, but some records have seemed unbreakable, such as the Rocket’s 50 goals in 50 games and Babe Ruth’s 714 home run. Outside sports it was Brian Mulroney’s $39 billion deficit, then this Prime Minister and finance minister blew it out of the water. They did it with their ill-advised moves these past few years, so when the recession triggered this deficit on steroids, for those who really need help, they have nothing left but placebo announcements. Why?

Hon. Jim Flaherty (Minister of Finance, CPC): Mr. Speaker, since when does the member opposite take this hypocritical position? Why does he stand and criticize the government for running a deficit, as we are obliged to do in order to help unemployed people in Canada, and at the same time say that the government should spend even more money? One does not make the playoffs that way.