Major penalties will end blindside hits: Cherry
Written by on March 10th, 2010 in Latest News.
Don Cherry believes the proposed rule to penalize blindside hits to the head can succeed if infractions are punished with a major penalty.
Speaking after a Paralympic luncheon in Vancouver on Wednesday, the Hockey Night in Canada personality and former Bruins coach feels the threat of leaving a team shorthanded for five minutes is the best way to change player behaviour.
“A major will [work],” Cherry said. “When you get a five-minute major, you’re going to reckon. You can fine them all you want. So what, the guys peel off money.
“The major, that’s one thing you don’t want to get because you’re going to be five minutes small. I know if I was a coach I would be really ticked. … The two-minute minor, that’s nothing.”
The proposed penalty, still subject to approval from the NHL’s competition committee, was agreed on by the league’s general managers in Boca Raton, Fla., during their annual meetings.
The new rule, which could take effect next season, follows an hideous incident Sunday in which Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke caught Boston’s Marc Savard with a shoulder to the head.
Savard is out indefinitely.
The incident was similar to several others earlier this season, including one in which Flyers captain Mike Richards levelled Florida’s David Booth.
Cherry said the Cooke and Richards hits are “what they have to get out … blindsiding. We call that in hockey, ‘Cheap shots.’”
Cherry, repeating an oft-stated viewpoint, said a new rule wouldn’t be necessary if the rule giving an instigator a two-minute minor didn’t exist.
“Back in the 1970s, if a guy did that, he wouldn’t end in the game,” Cherry said. “Can you imagine in your wildest dreams somebody doing that to [Wayne] Gretzky when [Marty] McSorley and [Dave] Semenko was on the club? It would never happen because we didn’t have the instigator rule like they have now.
“It’s not lack of respect, it’s lack of dread. If you ever did it with my team, you wouldn’t end the game.”
