Stanley Cup: Rome's suspension signals start of NHL concussion plans

Part six of our season-long series: An Australian on Ice Hockey

Aaron Rome's season has passed on. It lies on a gurney next to Nathan Horton's, the man whose Stanley Cup dreams now depend totally on how well he's able to recover from Rome's blindside hit. He was yesterday suspended for four matches by the NHL's temporary Arbiter of Justice, Mike Murphy, a decision greeted with disdain on both sides of the continent.

In encouraging signs for the NHL, they've got this one right. Just as they did so by turning a lemon into lemonade with the Thrashers' relocation to Winnipeg, when faced with two very tricky situations (this Rome hit and that relocation) a commission notoriously unpopular in Canada has made excellent, reasoned decisions. This comes on the back of the NHL All-Star Game breaking with tradition and opting for a "captain's choice" format. Three times, the NHL has faced issues which could derail or overshadow their season. On each issue they've come out on top. It would have been easy just to keep on trucking with the Great Southern Experiment and just as easy to suspend Rome for one or two games.

By levying such a heavy tax on the offender the NHL has announced they will no longer stand for blindside hits that endanger players. The penny, it seems, has finally dropped. Hockey, like the NFL and even baseball needs to minimise the effects of violent contact to the head. With such writers like Malcolm Gladwell weighing in on the area of concussions in sport, popular opinion has begun to swing from "entertainment" to "safety". With hockey and football, where mandated violence is such a staple, reduction in head-hits are best achieved through via punishment doled out by the league's HQ.

As much as it will upset the traditionalists, hockey's rules need to change. In the wake of Crosby-gate and the Zdeno Chara/Max Pacioretty hit, the league has to reinforce to players that hits to the head will not be countenanced. After the Chara/Pacioretty affair, we discussed the need for players of all sports - but particularly hockey players - to realise the need for a duty of care: a player's first duty should be to win, but not at the expense of their (or their colleagues') safety.

Rome's suspension is the first sign the NHL believes the same and are acting to clean up hockey.

Any suggestion that the game would suffer were they to penalise players for head-high contact is rubbish. People watch hockey for the game itself, not the surrounding hullabaloo - it's easy to suggest only a very small percentage of viewers would turn off the NHL were the league to crack down on head-high contact. The same could be said for fighting although hockey fights are more WWE than the die-hard fan cares to admit.

Many leagues have cleaned up their act and gone on to produce a better product. The NBA suffered from a poor popular perception during the 1970s and early 1980s. Fighting and cocaine were destroying the league, but when commissioner David Stern began his reign, heavy fines and suspensions were levied on fighting and drug use, which became more and more uncommon. Pro basketball was no longer seen as a competition for thugs and junkies. It is currently enjoying the end of perhaps it's greatest season in recent memory.

The same occurred for the AFL who, after several incidents like Leigh Matthews being charged with assault in the mid-80s, created a much more family-friendly league by instituting retrospective penalties for incidents in-game officials may have missed. The Australian Football League probably leads the league in family appeal and it's all-inclusive nature.

The second step forward for the NHL was taken today (Wednesday) when the League's collection of General Managers voted to take an amended "Rule 48" to the Players' Association - essentially penalising any contact to the head with in-game penalties or even suspensions. This is a great step by a league who's surprisingly made good decision after good decision starting with the All-Star game - but the ultimate responsibility for player safety depends not just on the league's head honchos, but also on the individual players themselves.

Read more "An Australian on Ice Hockey":

Part 5: The Psychology of Choking

Part 4: Canadiens vs Boston the Austin Powers NHL playoff matchup

Part 3: Chara's Pacioretty hit means a lot for NHL - and pro sport

Part 2: NHL All-Star Shakeup a great idea

Part 1: You make excuses for the Habs

Images courtesy: sports.yahoo.com and espn.com

Balanced Sports published on The Roar

Balanced Sports has been published on The Roar, a leading Australian sports opinion blog. This time, we examine how the NBA Playoff matchup between the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder is viewed in the Pacific Northwest.

Memphis Grizzlies vs. Oklahoma City Thunder a sad Pacific Northwest Basketball tale

This year's NBA Western Conference Semifinal series between Memphis and Oklahoma City is a particularly painful one for many NBA afficionados to watch. Not for the quality of the play: the Grizzlies cuurently may be playing the best basketball in the West, while Oklahoma City's roster includes superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook combined with feel-good role players like Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins. It's hutsome - especially in my current home city - because it showcases two NBA franchises that relocated from the Pacific Northwest to smaller Midwest markets.

In 2008, the club formerly known as the Seattle Sonics bolted town after forty-one years ingrained into Northwest folklore. That span included twenty-two playoff campaigns, three NBA finals appearances and the 1979 NBA Championship where a three-guard rotation of Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson and "Downtown" Freddie Brown were anchored by the outstanding hair (and post game) of young centre Jack Sikma. It rankles Seattle fans so much that many now take no interest at all in pro basketball. Nearly three years since new owner moved the franchise to Oklahoma City, there's still enough ire for the man who sold the team, Howard Schultz, to eject fans from a book signing in upmarket Bellevue. Many of the disenfranchised Sonic Nation now boycott his company, Starbucks, for having the nerve to sell to a man whose known aim was getting the NBA into Oklahoma City.

Even though the city of Seattle refused to relinquish the Supersonics' name and the yellow and green which defined their jersey, Seattleites still seethe at the factors and faces involved in taking a young playoff team (comprising Westbrook and Durant) away from a staunch basketball city. even during periods of basketball droughts, the fans turned up. Key Arena, the Sonics' home for most of their Northwest tenure, is now home only to the Seattle Storm and the Rat City Rollergirls.

Vancouver's is a different story - the city simply wasn't given a viable chance at NBA life. They existed in their expansion form for only six years before Michael Heisley purchased the team and moved them to basketball purgatory, Memphis, home of exactly zero other pro sports franchises. The Grizzlies allegedly haven't been profitable since moving to the Midwest, which led to a series of costcutting moves and Heisley's consistent presence on "NBA's worst owner" lists. That their current roster is successful runs almost in spite of Heisley's ownership as time and again he has failed to pay the right players and forked over for the wrong ones. According to reliable hearsay, the decision to draft uberbust Hasheem Thabeet over almost every other draftee was his, overruling his personnel division. Only recently has he started to dig into his own capacious pockets, realising the only way to be profitable is to win. Even with this new fiscal policy, his lucrative extension to Zach Randolph (while bidding against no-one else) proves he still struggles to get it right.

While it's true that basketball has no chance to be the number one sport in Vancouver, it could well establish itself as a solid second behind a beloved Canuck team which consistently folds in the playoffs. Rogers Arena is a beautiful, state-of-the-art complex which could easily, comfortably and profitably house an NBA franchise (The Vancouver Pacers, anyone?). As someone who is a recent resident of both cities, there's certainly demand enough for pro basketball in both cities: witness the support that both cities' new MLS franchises have so quickly accumulated.

Seattle, however, is a basketball town. The list of great basketball players who grew up in Washington is remarkable: Brandon Roy, Jamal Crawford, John Stockton, Jason Terry, Detlef Schrempf, Doug Christie and Aaron Brooks all attended High School in the state. Shawn Kemp, Fred Brown, Slick Watts and Bill Russell, among others, all still reside on Puget Sound. During NCAA tournament month, bars go crazy with expectation for the Universities of Washington, Washington State and Gonzaga. Now, playoff time in Seattle is met only with the green and blue of Seattle Sounders scarves.

Game One was a typical Grizzly win, as the club rode Z-Bo's inside scoring. To even the series, Game Two saw the Zombie Sonic bench blow up behind young guards Eric Maynor and James Harden. The Thunder, even though they won 55 games this year, lost three of their four games against the 46-win Grizzlies this season, although key post defender Kendrick Perkins did not play in any of those matches. With the teams evenly matched, the series should be an exciting spectacle for the average NBA fans, especially in light of a pending lockout. Here in Seattle, there's a small, sad shrug and hope the Mariners don't suck as bad tonight.

Pro basketball's dead to this city. It's why all in Sacramento fear the Anaheim Royals. They should.

Image courtesy: http://www.thearch-info.com/Sports/Basketball/White_HOF.html

The Psychology of Choking

Part 5 of our continuing series: An Australian on Ice Hockey.

Part 1: You make excuses for the Habs

Part 2: NHL All-Star Game shakeup a great idea

Part 3: Chara's Pacioretty hit means a lot for NHL - and pro sport

Part 4: Canadiens vs. Boston the Austin Powers NHL Playoff matchup

When the Chicago Blackhawks scored with little over a minute remaining to tie their Game 7 first-round playoff match with the Vancouver Canucks last night, I got really excited. Not because I particularly like Chicago or dislike the Canucks, but because an upset was in the offing and the Canucks were going to choke against the Hawks again! I wanted to see Chicago come back from 3-0 down in the series to win; comebacks of those proportions happen once in a generation, if that often. That Alexandre Burrows shot the Canucks into the second round after only a few minutes of overtime came as a bit of a let down, but it prompted a left-brain/right-brain discussion for me.

The question must be asked whether it was again the much-feted Vancouver choke or just oustanding play by the Blackhawks that allowed their comeback. At this stage, no-one in the West of Canada cares much about anything else (it was stories 1,2 3 and 6 on the Vancouver news last night) as the Sedins-led squad has finally beaten their playoff nemesis, but is it fair simply to lay the blame on the Canucks being overwhelmed by the situation? Against an eighth-seeded Chicago, shorn of many of their Stanley Cup winning squad from a year ago?

The answer is that choking just isn't as simple as all that - it's a multifactorial occurrence, as for a favourite to lose to an underdog requires many different ducks to be in the right row. While it's easy to see one individual player become lost in the moment, for an entire team to choke depends on all the members of that squad - or a certain subsection, for example, the forwards - almost simultaneously losing their own collective consciousness.

Choking as a team isn't a favourite being outplayed. A team can be said to choke when they look at their lesser opponents (and there can't be any debate on who has the better team), and think "Hang on, we should be beating these guys", provoking a negative, rather than positive performance. Often a choke looks like a player/club trying not to make mistakes, rather than going out to win a match/series. Choking isn't just a one-seed being beaten by an eight-seed - it's when the favourite looks at their opposition and collectively soils themselves at the very concept of losing, by virtue of their opposition, the big picture or that they're already perceived as chokers.

Otherwise, San Antonio's probable series loss to Memphis in this year's NBA playoffs would be called just that, and it's not. In truth, Memphis have outplayed the Spurs after tanking their last couple of games during the regular season to make sure they met in the postseason. The simple fact is with a lineup featuring Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker and Antonio McDyess all playing big minutes, the club has the stones to come through in the clutch as all have proved themselves in the NBA Finals time and again. The Spurs are failing because they're being outplayed by a younger, hungrier and healthier team.

The suggestion - and I can't prove it - is that a team choking is much, much harder to do than is regularly attributed. The reason so many clubs are said to be chokers *cough* Vancouver, South Africa, New Zealand *cough* is because popular perception is that each of these clubs should be so good as to be untouchable in the playoffs. This is a flawed notion, because it completely disregards in most cases (cricket is perhaps the exception), the simple fact that it is the playoffs changes the game, perhaps to the benefit of a club (cf. the current Boston Celtics) and occasionally to the detriment (cf. the Canucks). Team choking - while it still does happen - depends on so many people "losing it" in synchrony, that it's become much more an issue of public perception than of a team's performance. Teams are said to be chokers because they bear the weight of public expectation.

The great, all-time chokes tend to come from solo sports: Greg Norman was famous for it, as was Slovak tennis player Miloslav Mecir, who was so overwhelmed by the moment on one occasion that he served underarm. In Rugby Union, any time the All Blacks fail to win the World Cup, it is deemed a choke. The same applies to South Africa and India during the cricket World Cup - although South Africa almost certainly performed the Team Choke when losing to Australia in the 1999 World Cup. These are unfair generalisations and dont't take into account the context in which each game - or tournament - was played.

While the Canucks mercifully move on to face Nashville, they may have shaken their "chokers" tag - at least for now. But hopefully, one of the overused terms in sports journalism is now starting to be applied more contextually.

The author of this post would like to put on the record that he is not a psychologist, and has only the most basic training in psychology, but thought the title was quite snappy, so stuck with it.