Rypien Story Goes From Ridiculous to Ridiculously Ridiculous

Not since Abe Lincoln has someone been vilified so quickly.

The media buffet on this Rick Rypien incident only opened last night, but I'm already full. It's been wall to wall Rypper today, as everyone wants to weigh in on the abomination he committed last night. The good news is that the incident has overshadowed the abomination the Canucks committed last night. The bad news? Rick Rypien just passed Killer Moth on the list of the worst villains ever, and he's closing in on Calendar Man. Rick Rypien would like you to believe he's not a baby eater. But he's never gone on record saying he isn't. Maybe it's because he's too busy eating babies. Yes, his public crucifixion is getting a little ridiculous, especially when you consider that he merely grabbed the fan. He didn't hit him; he didn't bite him; he didn't poke him in the eye.

He just grabbed him. For about three seconds. And yet the fan is threatening to sue.

Rypien deserves to be suspended. You can't do what he did--it was stupid, and he deserves to sit out a few games. But when he touched that fan (James Engquist), it was dumb on dumb. This fan is a stupid guy.

I didn't want to weigh in on this. I feel like we covered all there is to this last night in the IWTG. But, like Rypien, I've been provoked by James Engquist who, in his interview with Michael Russo (quoted below) gave himself away as a certified gomer. Here is James describing what instigated the incident:

"I was just standing straight up applauding as he was getting kicked out. He was out of control. And then I said, 'Way to be professional,' and he obviously didn’t care for that comment [...]

Few would care for that comment, you pinhead. James. Rypien is a man who makes a living punching people in the face. He was, in your own words "out of control" with anger, and you decided to stand up, applaud, and make a snide comment? A comment about professionalism to an enraged fighter. Sounds to me like you deserved to see his profession first-hand. A better option would have been to not infuriate an already irate pugilist. The first guy I punch when I'm being kicked out of somewhere is the guy who makes a snide comment once I'm no longer restrained. Here is James describing the fear he felt:

[He] decided to grab me and almost dragged me over the rail. If my brother wasn’t grabbing me and the other player wasn't grabbing him, he probably would have dragged me over the edge."

Man, that is a whole lot of grabbing going on in this story. That must have been terrifying for you, James. Had he succeeded in dragging you over the edge, as you claim (despite the video showing you were never even close) you would have been dragged over the edge. I don't know what happens next, but I'll bet it involves you being briefly on the other side of the edge.

"This is a crazy incident. I’ve seen a lot of hockey in my day, and I’ve never seen someone actually come into the stands and assault a fan," said Engquist.

Really? You've seen a lot of hockey and you've never seen this? Because that's what you're describing, and it's not what happened to you. Rypien didn't come into the stands and he didn't assault you. He grabbed you. Apart from increasing the value of your hockey jersey in online auctions, he accomplished very little when he touched you for three seconds.

Engquist said he is "definitely seeking legal representation. ... I was assaulted, that's just the bottom line."

No you weren't. You were touched. I've seen children grab the hem of their mother's housedress harder. Sadly, I'm sure there's a waaahmbulance-chaser out there, willing to slap a neck brace on you and claim Rypien dislocated your spine, but you should know that you just went from folk hero to total loser in one sentence.

Assault? Please. You were hit harder by the fans you high-fived on your way to better seats. You're fine, James. Let it go, like Rypien did, three seconds after he grabbed you.

And if this does go to court, let the record show that you lied about having seen a lot of hockey, since you've never seen the Milbury/O'Reilly incident. What else are you lying about, James? Better keep your stories straight....

The Endless Cycle of Enforcement

I don't understand why Darcy Hordichuk's place in the #Canucks lineup is even in question. Who else is going to show up to do what he does?

~ @rcamcole

Who is going to do what Darcy Hordichuk does?

The first question to ask is what does Darcy Hordichuk do?

As I established in a post back in June, I like fighting in hockey. I firmly believe that fighting is necessary as a deterrent for cheap shots, to protect star players, and to pump up teammates and fans, but beyond all the logical and reasonable arguments for fighting, I simply enjoy it. Call it barbarism, but I enjoy seeing a good, old-fashioned hockey fight.

What I don't enjoy seeing is a player with limited ability costing my team points in the standings. I get annoyed when I see a player consistently get beaten in the defensive zone, mishandle a pass, or take a stupid penalty. As soon as such a player hits the ice, the fans collectively hold their breath, just waiting for him to make a mistake and hoping that he gets off the ice as soon as possible. The question arises: how does a person who so clearly cannot play professional hockey at the NHL level get a job playing professional hockey at the NHL level? Because this particular specimen is an "enforcer" and is paid not to play hockey, but to punch people on skates.

When Darcy Hordichuk was signed by the Canucks in 2008, I was initially pleased, as were a great many other Canucks fans. By all reports, Darcy Hordichuk is a wonderful person and a great teammate. Furthermore, the team had been without a legitimate heavyweight fighter for years, with Jeff Cowan attempting to fill that role in the previous season. Hordichuk was seen as a guy who could skate a regular shift on the 4th line, a reliable checker who could, at the very least, skate. Turns out, that wasn't exactly true. He has not been reliable; instead, he's been a liability. Sure, he'll throw a few hits, but they're hardly impactful. Otherwise, he doesn't do much of anything other than occasionally fight.

Which means, his only purpose is to fight. And the only people he fights are other enforcers. Which means his fights don't do what a hockey fight is meant to do.

An enforcer like Hordichuk doesn't fight an opposing team's cheap-shot artists. If Matt Cooke, for example, elbows an opponent or catches a player with his head down, he may be challenged to a fight, but no one expects him to fight a heavyweight like Derek Boogaard, Darcy Hordichuk, or George Parros. It would be considered ludicrous, akin to Zdeno Chara flipping Bryan McCabe around like a matador's cape. A player like Evander Kane, on the other hand, can take on Matt Cooke, because it's reasonable for him to do so. Evander Kane can play hockey and he can fight a cheap-shot artist.

An enforcer like Hordichuk doesn't protect a team's star players. Quite frankly, if Hordichuk is on the ice at the same time as the Sedins, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. If someone does target the Sedins, Hordichuk may come off the bench the following shift, but he's not going to fight the offending player. Instead, he's going to fight the other team's designated fighter. That fighter isn't going to be the player who originally targeted the Sedins, because he can't play hockey either and if he was on the ice at the same time as the Sedins, they just scored a goal.

The only possible purpose, then, of the heavyweight enforcer is to pump up his teammates and the crowd. As I mentioned, I enjoy watching a hockey fight, but I get much more pumped-up watching the speedy fists of Rick Rypien or even the mullet-ness and willingness to take a punch of Tanner "No Third Line For" Glass than the flailing ineptitude of Darcy Hordichuk. Obviously I can't speak for his teammates, but I certainly don't get pumped up watching Darcy Hordichuk fight because I know it plays no role in the outcome of the game. Two team-appointed fighters squaring off holds no appeal to me because they are only members of their respective teams in the most technical of terms.

In many ways, the world of hockey enforcement is akin to the academic world of philosophy; it's insular and frequently serves no purpose to the world at large. In philosophy, it's just philosophers disagreeing with each other completely aside from the issues that actually matter to regular people and in hockey, it's heavyweights fighting with each other completely aside from the hockey that actually decides the result of a game. Darcy Hordichuk only slots into the lineup if there is a player on the opposing team that "needs" to be fought. If the opposing team has no such player, he sits in the press-box, pondering his knuckles. So what would happen if no other team in the NHL had such a player?

What would happen if every team in the NHL broke the cycle of enforcement and cut ties with their players who do nothing but chuck knuckles within the fraternity of fighters?

George Parros might need to actually use his degree from Princeton. Derek Boogaard would have to go back to teaching teenagers how to fight. Darcy Hordichuk could return to his modelling career. Raitis Ivanans would go back to whatever it is that Raitis Ivanans does. And the NHL would drastically cut down on the number of pointless fights.

Enforcers who can play?

Guy Boucher, the new coach for the Tampa Bay Lightning who is about as far-removed from old-school hockey thinking as is humanly possible, summed up his thoughts on enforcers in a recent article by Damian Cristodero:

The reality is you need an enforcer, in my book, if he can play the game. If he can’t play the game it just makes somebody unhappy not playing much. It also prevents some other guys who could bring a lot of stuff on the ice. I’m all for enforcers if they can hog a lot of minutes during the game, use them for penalty kill or against top lines. I don’t like guys sitting on the bench. I use everybody. I use all my four lines. I use all my defense. Everybody has got a role on the team. And when a guy has only that role I don't feel comfortable about it.

The role of the heavyweight enforcer who can't play hockey is, or perhaps should be, dead. It seems strange to say that when Derek Boogaard, the quintessential representative of this fraternity, can get signed by Glen Sather for $6.5 million over 4 years, but that's what happens when an NHL team employs a man married to the old-school vision of hockey. There's a reason the signing was scoffed at: Boogaard has scored a whopping 2 goals over his entire 5-year career. That's not the kind of production that normally nets a multi-year, big-money deal. Of course, Boogaard was not signed to play hockey, he was signed to fight.

But the Boogeyman has only fought 9 times in each of his last two seasons. In all 82 games the Wild played last season, Boogaard fought in 9 of them. He averaged the fewest minutes of any player on the Wild (other than 2-game wunderkind Danny Irmen) with 6:09 and only played in 57 games. That's pretty much the definition of a non-impact player. Boogaard will be paid $1.625 million a year to fight 9 times a year. That's it. He doesn't contribute anything else on the ice. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and say he fights 10 times a year. That's still a whopping $162,500 per fight.

Still, Boogaard is regarded as one of the premier fighters in the NHL, a bona fide heavyweight enforcer. So why doesn't he fight more often? Because the only people willing to fight him are other bona fide heavyweight enforcers (and Darcy Hordichuk). No one else is willing to fight him because they know he could cave in their faces (literally) with one swing of his Thanksgiving-turkey-sized fists.

Sounds like a pretty intimidating guy, and he is, but he's not intimidating as a hockey player. He is only intimating as a fighter and if another player doesn't want to fight him, he doesn't have to. And, since he barely sees the ice during a game, he's not much of a threat to a team's star players, so there's no need for the opposition to ice their own enforcer to protect those players.

Boogaard is not an enforcer who can play and neither is Hordichuk. Unfortunately, it's entirely possible that Hordichuk will make the Canucks' opening night roster purely on the basis that he can fight the heavyweight goons and the assumption that it's necessary for him to do so. Why do the Canucks need Darcy Hordichuk? To fight Derek Boogaard, George Parros, and Brian McGrattan. Why do the Rangers need Derek Boogaard? To fight George Parros, Brian McGrattan, and Darcy Hordichuk. And so the cycle goes.

The Kurtenblog asked the question, "Do the Canucks need an enforcer?" It seems clear to me that the answer is no, that no team actually needs an enforcer cut from the Hordichuk/Boogaard/Parros cloth. An enforcer that can play, that contributes on the ice when he is not fighting? That is a player worth having. There is no point to having an enforcer who's only job is to fight the opposing team's enforcer. If this is all that he does, what is actually being enforced?

Who is going to do what Hordichuk does? Hopefully no one, because what Hordichuk does is not worth doing.

Every Goal, Forward Edition: the Guys with Four Goals or Less

Demitra: Did you see that? Two between-the-legs moves in a row!
Wellwood: Ho ho ho! Golly, that was nifty.
Demitra: We didn't score, but we're satisfied with the skills we've showcased!

Welcome back to the Every Goal series, a nearly exhaustive compendium of every goal the Canucks scored last season, player by player, in chronological order. There are two days left in this beast. Today, we cover the forwards who scored four goals or less as a Canuck last season in descending order: Rick Rypien (4), Tanner Glass (4), Pavol Demitra (3), and the one-goal guys--Darcy Hordichuk, Matt Pettinger, and Ryan Johnson.

Most of these guys deserve to be here. They're the muckers, the grinders, the six minutes a night guys, with the exception of Pavol Demitra. Consider that I've been railing against Glass being used as a third-liner at times last season, but he outscored Pavol Demitra. Injuries be damned, my friends--that is unacceptable. Nucks Misconduct has been touting a Demitra-free existence since July 1, and I have to admit I like breathing the Vancouver air knowing I'm not sharing it with Pavol Demitra. To be fair, he had his moments in Vancouver, but seemingly none of them came while wearing a Vancouver jersey and that's infuriating. Part of me thinks the Demo nickname is more appropriate now that we know Vancouver got the limited demo version of Pavol (hence, why this didn't amount to anything), and the Slovaks got the fully licensed, unlocked version. In the future, Gillis, let's steer clear of shareware. On to the forwards.

Rick Rypien

1. Oct. 16 vs. the Calgary Flames
Rypien's first of the season comes on a feed from Henrik. He comes out from behind the net and then wires a wrist shot, top corner, over Kiprusoff. It's a gorgeous shot. Credit to Henrik, who gets the puck to him with a ton of space to do something.

2. Nov. 3 vs. the New York Rangers
Rypien here is the beneficiary of some incredible work by Ryan Kesler, who enters the zone 1-on-3, dumps the puck in, gets it back, and controls it along the boards before finding Rypien sneaking in. Kesler makes a beautiful pass, and Rypien finishes.

3. Jan. 5 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets
Rypien rips (pun!) a slapshot past Steve Mason in this clip and it's a bullet. The real story here is Kyle Wellwood's weak little saucer pass, however, as it hops over the defender's stick and then just lays there, waiting for the Rypper to tear into it.

4. Apr. 10 vs. the Calgary Flames
Credit here to Adam Pardy, who does some terrible defensive work, gets beat and loses his stick in Matt Pettinger's legs. The play becomes a 2-on-1, and Pettinger walks in before feeding it to Rypien directly in front of Kiprusoff. Rypien's four goals show he's actually got a pretty good shot, and here he puts it to good use. The guy isn't much of a playmaker, but he actually can finish if he's set up.

Tanner Glass

Tanner Glass, upon realizing that, against all reason, he's skating on the third line tonight.

1. Nov. 1 vs. the Colorado Avalanche (at 1:51 of clip)
Glass scores on a 2-on-1 with Kyle Wellwood by keeping, shooting, and having the puck bank off the defenseman, which is the textbook play, really.

2. Nov. 14 vs. the Colorado Avalanche
Glass's goal is the eighth of the game for the Canucks, so everything was going in for them. That's likely why Glass scores. He shows good strength with the puck here, coming out from behind the net, fighting off his man, and putting it low on the short side.

3. Nov. 26 vs. the Los Angeles Kings (at 5:37 of clip)
Don't believe Shorty's call here. It's Glass that scores, although Wellwood does most of the work, stealing the puck in the neutral zone and feeding Glass. After Quick makes the save, Glass pokes the rebound home.

4. Nov. 28 vs. the Edmonton Oilers
Glass's shows good tenacity on his fourth goal of the season, coming out from behind the net for a shot, then picking up his own rebound and roofing it. I'm not a huge fan of Tanner Glass. Yes, he dished out many hits, but not very good hits, and he didn't bring much else. This despite a number of games where he skated, inexplicably and poorly, on the third line, thereby causing Kyle Wellwood to have to sign a tryout contract with Phoenix. All this said, however, I would have Tanner Glass in November. He scored four goals last season, all in November.

Pavol Demitra

1. Feb. 6 vs. the Boston Bruins
Demitra's first of only three goals last season was a big one. Down late in the third period, he tips this Tanner Glass shot home to tie the game. My favourite part of this clip? Kyle Wellwood, looking hapless. That's him tripping over a Bruin in the corner of the frame on every replay.

2. Mar. 2 vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like everybody on the roster scored a goal on Steve Mason last year. He's just looked terrible in these clips all through the Every Goal series. Anyway, here he is getting beat by a Demitra wrister off a rebound. My favourite thing about this clip? Mikael Samuelsson's interference to give Demo the room to get to this this puck and shoot it. He had body position, but still, it just looks so blatantly like interference.

3. Apr. 8 vs. the San Jose Sharks
Here we have another beautiful yet largely-forgotten piece of wizardous sedinerie, as Henrik and Daniel pull off a give-and-go along the boards. Daniel's no-look, between-the-legs back-pass to Henrik is downright effortless. From there, Henrik feeds Demitra, who makes a nice shot to score the goal. This is a tight angle shot that Demitra absolutely kills.

Darcy Hordichuk
Darcy Hordichuk, after winning a fight with the puck.

1. Nov. 5 vs. the Minnesota Wild
Darcy Hordichuk's only goal of last season comes on a dreadful botched breakout, as Derek Boogaard fails to receive a simple pass, and the puck squirts out to Hordy instead. He slaps the puck past Backstrom. Glen Sather, upon seeing this goal, immediately circled Boogaard's name on his must-sign list.

Matt Pettinger

1. Nov. 5 vs. the Minnesota Wild
Can you believe Matt Pettinger scored his only goal of the season in the same game as Darcy Hordichuk? How odd. Anyway, this one comes off a pretty terrible angle, and banks in off of Backstrom. That's two goals the Wild shouldn't have allowed, both to the Canucks' fourth line. Yes, they lost the game. I love the look on Hordichuk's face when he's on the ice for a goal. It's like, "OMG YOU GUYS WOW." He's genuinely shocked not to be in the minuses.

Ryan Johnson

1. Mar. 18 vs. the San Jose Sharks
What's incredible to me about Ryan Johnson is that, while he rarely scored, the ones he potted weren't easy. This goal is a prime example. Johnson shows speed, stickhandling ability, and quick hands to get to that rebound. This goal is another example. It's a shame this Ryan Johnson only showed up about once a season. Farewell, Balls. You will be missed, just like when you played for us.

Tuesday Night is Merely Okay for Fighting

Jake Bogoch's article on the Puckmasters Fight School is a must read. As an inside look at the controversial fight school, it's intriguing; as a look at why fighting is a part of the game of hockey, it's invaluable.

As a borderline pacifist who was raised Mennonite, I've always had trouble defending the presence of fighting in my favorite spectator sport. It's not just the fact that it's there, it's the fact that I enjoy it. There's nothing quite like Rick Rypien looking up at a player eight inches taller and sixty pounds heavier and taking him to task.

When I introduced my wife, an American raised watching baseball and football, to the great game of hockey, fighting was one of the initial barriers. It was something that just didn't make sense. I tried to explain the benefits of protecting star players, pumping up your teammates (and the fans), and even intimidating opponents. All of it rang hollow. While all of those are legitimate reasons for fighting to remain a part of the fabric of hockey, the real reason I don't want fighting out of the NHL is because I enjoy it so much.

As Professor Farnsworth might say: "Oh my, yes."

Let's face it, every hockey fan in North America cheered when Evander Kane knocked out Matt Cooke (perhaps he should have attended the Puckmasters Fight School), though some purists may have attached an asterisk to the moment, noting Kane's visored helmet still securely attached to his head. Every Canucks fan perks up when they see a clueless goon size up Rick Rypien, thinking he's an easy target. Even my wife has taken to the Rypper. Hockey fans love fighting.

The odd thing is, as much as hockey fans love it, fighting continues to be wrapped up in arguments against the violence of hockey. Appeals are made to the wider sports audience, that hockey is too violent for the casual sports fan. Meanwhile, UFC 114 Prelims on Spike TV captured 1.6 million viewers. The moments of violence collated by CBC post-Bertuzzi-incident? Only one involved actual fighting, the legendary night the Lights Went Out, wherein essentially every player involved in the junior Canada-Soviet game squared off, the Cold War taking to the ice. That's a bit of an isolated incident.

But the sidebar to Bogoch's blog about fighting is "A History of Violence," with less electric-drill-based torture and more recapping of the deep-roots violence has in hockey. Every incident mentioned involves swinging a stick at a player's head; none of them involve a hockey fight. To what purpose was that sidebar attached to Bogoch's article about the Fight School? It's an odd editorial decision: the logical sidebar for such an article would be a history of hockey fights. Obviously, someone at Deadspin disagrees.

Not pictured: Hockey.

To finish things off, here's Nucks Misconduct's Top 10 Rick Rypien Fights. Good gravy, I love Rick Rypien. And Darcy Hordichuk had some interesting thoughts on fighting in this old blog post. Worth a read. As is A History of Violence. Very different from the movie.