Quenneville fined for speaking his mind

By Jeff D’Andrea

paNOW Staff

“We gave 110 per cent, for a full 60 minutes.” “We have to get pucks deep behind their defencemen.” “We have to get bodies in front of their goalie and pucks to the net.”

Hockey clichés ruin post-game interviews one line at a time and have done so ever since microphones have been pushed in front of head coaches and team captains. But Chicago Blackhawks head coach Joel Quenneville’s honest and unfiltered comments after Tuesday’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Phoenix Coyotes show why the recycled, pre-prepared clichéd statements are here to stay—forever. Why? He got fined $10,000 because he chose not to resort to a cliché, or to tuck himself in a ‘no comment’ blanket. He got fined because he told the truth.

Quenneville watched Phoenix Coyotes forward Raffi Torres leap off the ice and deliver a vicious and blatant head shot to Blackhawks star Marian Hossa. Hossa crumbled to the ice, was taken off the ice on a stretcher and then rushed to hospital.

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No penalty was issued on the play. The referees, Ian Walsh and Stephen Walkom, who was the former director of officiating, and the two linesmen, Brad Lazarowich and Jonny Murray, simply missed it. They must have also forgot Torres delivered a similar hit to Blackhawks defenceman Brent Seabrook exactly a year before Tuesday’s game, as a member of the Vancouver Canucks.

“It was a brutal hit,” Quenneville said in the post-game press conference Tuesday. “I saw exactly what happened. It was right in front of me. How four guys missed it was hard. The refereeing tonight was a disgrace.”

That comment was worth a $10,000 fine, I guess.

Apparently, Quenneville would have only gotten a quarter of that fine if he climbed on the ice and shoved Walkom’s face into the glass, as long as Quenneville wore a Shea Weber jersey during the act.

The league essentially admitted that the referees made a mistake when they decided to suspend Torres indefinitely Wednesday morning, before a discipline hearing Friday. If the hit warranted a suspension, surely, it would warrant at least a minor penalty, if not a match penalty and game misconduct.

Quenneville acknowledged that notion and shot from the hip when asked to comment on Torres’ actions. He didn’t swear, he didn’t call anybody a name and he didn’t say anything derogatory. He did state an opinion, something that’s done much too seldom in post-game interviews.

The money isn’t the issue—Quenneville can certainly afford it with his head coaching salary and there’s even a petition on twitter by Blackhawks fans to pitch in and pay the fine for ‘Coach Q.’

It’s the principle behind the fine that bothers me. With the fine, the league is essentially wagging their parental fingers and saying ‘don’t you say anything bad about us.’

But when coaches, GM’s or players criticize each other the league generally doesn’t get involved as that’s apparently fair game.

In 2008, then Edmonton Oilers GM Kevin Lowe challenged Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke to a fight in a live radio interview. Burke then arranged through New York Rangers GM Glen Sather to rent a barn in Lake Placid so both Lowe and Burke could literally fight out their problems. Although the barn brawl never happened, neither GM’s were suspended, or even fined for their actions leading up.

In the preseason this year, Philadelphia Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds allegedly called then-New York Rangers forward Sean Avery a homophobic slur during a game and did not receive any form of punishment from the league.

Both of those are totally fine, but utter the word ‘disgrace’ and ‘refereeing’ in the same sentence and you’ll pay—big time.

The inconsistency has been alarming in the NHL suspensions, especially in just the first week of players.

NHL’s president of player safety Brendan Shanahan will announce his punishment on Torres on Saturday, after meeting with Torres in person for over an hour Friday in New York.
Torres has been suspended twice and fined once in the last 13 months, not including this incident.

The repeat offender, rap sheet is there, the hit’s viciousness and blatant targeting of the head, and the fact Hossa was rushed to hospital and will likely be sidelined for a while.

Hopefully, the suspension will be a long, stiff one for the hit. After all, it’s Torres’ hit that’s the real ‘disgrace’ here.

jdandrea@panow.com