Sharks and IceCaps have “old school game”

102 minutes of penalties highlight brutal hockey game

By Andy Veilleux

Last weekend, the St. John’s IceCaps hosted the Worcester Sharks, who certainly took their name literally.

Players who waded into the shark tank—Mile One Centre ice—were attacked viciously and indiscriminately.

Sharks are, of course, the highest predator on the food chain in the ocean. In hockey, officials are supposed to make sure teams cannot act like predators and prosper for doing so.

The officials failed. Miserably.

The actual sport of hockey was often left by the wayside so that players could fight, slash, slew-foot, and generally act like assholes, instead of using their sticks for scoring.

The IceCaps kept their noses out of the rough stuff on Friday night despite all the dirty plays, but Saturday was a different story.

The teams combined for six fights, 102 penalty minutes, and three misconducts.

I watched IceCaps captain Jason Jaffray trip and then get slashed in the face in front of the linesman, with no call.

I watched starting goaltender David Aebischer of neutral Swiss descent take a body check as he skated back to his net that sent him flying through the air. He received a roughing penalty.

I watched what should have been a hockey game turn into a no-holds-barred, rock ‘em sock ‘em mixed martial arts match with skates and sticks, reminiscent of the Broad Street Bullies.

While the AHL has done much to shake the image of being a league filled with grinders and enforcers, there are still some games that make fans who don’t want to watch UFC-on-ice cringe.

Saturday’s game was by no means a regular occurrence, and the AHL has become a fast-paced, high-skilled development league for the NHL, as it was intended to be. Still, it is hard to shake the images left over from the game.

The weekend’s series held a lot of promise. Worcester recently received a 31-year-old 2006 Olympic bronze-medalist goaltender named Antero Niittymaki. The promise of seeing such a high-calibre athlete on the ice had several of us in the press box, and publicly on Rogers Hotstove, smacking our chops.

Instead, all we got to see from Niittymaki was him warming up twice, players slashing the hell out of each other, and fights breaking out at odd times.

Sure, some of the fights were in defense of a bad hit or players taking matters into their own hands—which is necessary when the officials let the game get out of control—but some fights were without cause.

I saw players get punched in the face for clean body checks that were not even big enough to get a crowd reaction. The first fight occurred off the face-off only three seconds into the game.

I am a fan of fighting in hockey. It helps keep the game honest, in my opinion. However, when fighting becomes the game, the only feeling is embarrassment.

Jaffray remarked after the game that he was embarrassed to have played in it.

IceCaps veteran centre Garth Murray, ejected from the game following his third fight, said the Sharks played an “old school” game that is “ten years” out-dated.

IceCaps head coach Keith McCambridge said the officials “let the game get played at an era of taking the game back to forty years ago.”

Jaffray, Murray, and McCambridge are absolutely right.

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