More adult league shenanigans

[wrangler 157]

Player responds with a few choice words and in response receives a babies dummy thrown at him (i.e. spitting out his dummy)

Can this be translated into American?

[shooter27 116]

McSorley? Tiger Williams?

It happens at all levels-- it just happens less at higher levels.

I remember McSorley, though when I think of baseball swing I think of hands together and high speed and I remember that being more of a slashing motion, but your point is taken. I don't know anything about a Tiger Williams incident.

[Fasckira 0]

-snip-

That is ace! What ENL team was it?

Can this be translated into American?

I think you guys call them pacifiers?

[Stewie 721]

I remember McSorley, though when I think of baseball swing I think of hands together and high speed and I remember that being more of a slashing motion, but your point is taken. I don't know anything about a Tiger Williams incident.

I think hes talking about the Tiger Woods incident where Elin was chasing him with a golf club. ;)

[vince57 4]

enl team was Telford enl1 titans

[chippa13 1844]

In September 1969, Green suffered one of the scariest injuries in NHL history in a stick swinging incident with Wayne Maki of the St. Louis Blues. It was an exhibition game in Ottawa and the two began swinging their sticks at each other as though they were Jedi Knights. The altercation ended when Maki clubbed Green on the head baseball swing style. That resulted in life threatening injuries to Green with three major operations were required to save his life. The left side of his body was paralyzed and it seemed obvious he would never play again.

Yet somehow Green made a miraculous comeback.

[hockeymass 11]

I think hes talking about the Tiger Woods incident where Elin was chasing him with a golf club. ;)

Tiger Williams played for the Canucks and got suspended for slashing Billy Smith of the Islanders in the neck.

[Law Goalie 147]

Tiger Williams played for the Canucks and got suspended for slashing Billy Smith of the Islanders in the neck.

Yeah, that was the one I had in mind...

CAUTION: the quote below contains less profanity than Tiger Williams' oratory on average.

[billy] Smith was good and sneaky, and he'd use his stick like a fucking ax. I remember one time he fucking two-handed me in the back of the calf -- there’s no padding there -- and I thought he broke my fucking leg. He cut me down like a tree. I was waiting to get him.... I hit him right across the neck, as hard as I could. I was going to cut his head right off. The only thing that pissed me off was that I didn't cut his head off. I was going to catch his head and throw it in the fucking stands.

And that's how psychopaths find gainful employment in sports.

[shooter27 116]

I know stick swinging used to be fairly common upto the early 70s or so. Thankfully they've done away with it almost completely with suspensions. There hasn't been an incident since McSorely and it had to have been 10-15 years between the prior incident and McSorely, no?

[goosedennis 0]

In September 1969, Green suffered one of the scariest injuries in NHL history in a stick swinging incident with Wayne Maki of the St. Louis Blues. It was an exhibition game in Ottawa and the two began swinging their sticks at each other as though they were Jedi Knights. The altercation ended when Maki clubbed Green on the head baseball swing style. That resulted in life threatening injuries to Green with three major operations were required to save his life. The left side of his body was paralyzed and it seemed obvious he would never play again.

Yet somehow Green made a miraculous comeback.

And Green has to live with a steel plate in his skull and Maki died. I hate to say it, but karma?

[Law Goalie 147]

I know stick swinging used to be fairly common upto the early 70s or so. Thankfully they've done away with it almost completely with suspensions. There hasn't been an incident since McSorely and it had to have been 10-15 years between the prior incident and McSorely, no?

You're absolutely right to say that it's been in serious decline since the 70s -- which was, oddly enough, the era when I'd say fighting really took off in a big way -- but there was also Chris Simon on Hollweg:

And it wasn't in the face, but the final act of Jamie 'Noodles' McLennan in the NHL was basically a lumber contract to section Johan Franzen:

I do still see a fair number of 'fencing' matches in crappy, chippy beer leagues, which is one of my tickets to absolutely never play there again.

[hyster110 3]

not really on the chippy side but

for a div 4 game, my team manager insisted on only using 9 forwards, and playing 7 d in order not to mess up the scoring chemistry. needless to say, i left and didn't bother playing (i play d)

[beerleaguecaptain 999]

Here on LI things seem to get chippy all the time and often altercations ensue. It happens at each level. My best friend had is ankle busted three years ago when a guy went after him and threw him over. Last month the same friend had his knee fucked up when he was ran from behind by a guy who was extracting revenge for a lost game. I see this stuff pretty regularly.

The refs do an awful job "controlling the game." I have been told they don't think it is their job to control it and my feeling is that if they don't they are complicit in guys possibly getting injured.

Now here is an interesting connection I make... many, of the men (myself included) have sons that play. Kids at that level are often taught that they need to hit so hard they hurt the opposition. They head hunt, they end injuring other players in reckless play, etc. They do not check to separate a player from the puck. They check to separate a player from their senses. Our boys are taught in the HS league not to fight but in travel and juniors the consequences are not so big and I have seen some pretty bad fights and even one bench clearer.

My point it... it is not just mens league... its us. We are teaching our kids a pretty bad lesson and then they will do the same to their kids unless USA Hockey, each local refs association and the leagues do something about it.

[shooter27 116]

My point it... it is not just mens league... its us. We are teaching our kids a pretty bad lesson and then they will do the same to their kids unless USA Hockey, each local refs association and the leagues do something about it.

Completely agreed, I've seen more and more fighting and brawling at the minor levels and its extremely disconcerting. Another factor is that so many more kids are playing junior hockey now (whether it's junior a, b, c, or d) and fighting is much more tolerated (in some cases its actually encouraged) at that level. Back in the 80s ands early 90s kids there were only a couple junior leagues and they were all high skill leagues developing kids for college. Now there there are two levels of midgets (u16 and u18) and the u18s are getting rarer because there are junior leagues at a variety of skill levels throughout the country and the kids would rather play juniors than u18 (for whatever reason). So you get kids that would never have played juniors in the past, because they're not college/pro prospects, playing juniors and fighting in juniors and that attitude likely carriers over when they age out and start playing beer league.

[dir3 0]

A League (watched a couple)

Fight

That was it. Earlier in the year someone took off their skate and tried to kill someone, but they got stopped.

This league does have a couple fights a month though

I laughed pretty hard at that, surely that is a story which must be told?

[beerleaguecaptain 999]

Completely agreed, I've seen more and more fighting and brawling at the minor levels and its extremely disconcerting. Another factor is that so many more kids are playing junior hockey now (whether it's junior a, b, c, or d) and fighting is much more tolerated (in some cases its actually encouraged) at that level. Back in the 80s ands early 90s kids there were only a couple junior leagues and they were all high skill leagues developing kids for college. Now there there are two levels of midgets (u16 and u18) and the u18s are getting rarer because there are junior leagues at a variety of skill levels throughout the country and the kids would rather play juniors than u18 (for whatever reason). So you get kids that would never have played juniors in the past, because they're not college/pro prospects, playing juniors and fighting in juniors and that attitude likely carriers over when they age out and start playing beer league.

Kids playing juniors who shouldn't be try to make a place for themselves on the team by doing things to get the coaches attention. Eventually they become crazed young adults playing in adult rec league. They should play in a B division but want to stroke their own ego and pretend they are Gretzky so they play down to a C or a D so you have the same a-hole lunatic running around the ice.

[iceNsteel 0]

The gym I go to has a basketball court in it and runs adults leagues. I don't play, but I have witnessed 4 or 5 fights just while working out. When I worked for the parks and rec department I couldn't even venture to guess how many softball fights we had to break up. I don't really think it has anything to do with hockey. There are just people out there that are a perfect storm of anger junky, lacking impulse control, and fueled by any competitive environment.

[raganblink 82]

I laughed pretty hard at that, surely that is a story which must be told?

The taking off the skate and trying to kill someone was in reference to Happy Gilmore, which apparently Happy tried to do that in a game... only player to ever do it.

for a div 4 game, my team manager insisted on only using 9 forwards, and playing 7 d in order not to mess up the scoring chemistry. needless to say, i left and didn't bother playing (i play d)

Why not 12 forwards and 4 defense? Or 4 centers, 6 wingers and 6 D? That's a really selfish/stupid mentality to have. The only time you should ever have 7 D is if you have 11 forwards, and you're playing a team that is exceptionally rough, physical, and the likelyhood of your defenders fighting the opposing team is high. I would have left too, that's stupid.

Now there there are two levels of midgets (u16 and u18) and the u18s are getting rarer because there are junior leagues at a variety of skill levels throughout the country and the kids would rather play juniors than u18 (for whatever reason). So you get kids that would never have played juniors in the past, because they're not college/pro prospects, playing juniors and fighting in juniors and that attitude likely carriers over when they age out and start playing beer league.

A lot of players that I have seen go play juniors (lower leagues) in the last couple of years are simply "living the dream" and just want to spend a year or two playing hockey and partying... they don't exceptionally care about improving themselves significantly with intentions to make it to college or beyond. The change I have seen with fewer and fewer quality players wanting to play juniors instead of U18s is two-fold, the cost of AAA is a lot. Juniors (the good leagues) are either free or inexpensive. Also if you're good and are going somewhere in hockey, most likely you've been discovered no later then U16s, and very infrequently will people make it past that unnoticed and then succeed to a good junior league or college.

[shooter27 116]

A lot of players that I have seen go play juniors (lower leagues) in the last couple of years are simply "living the dream" and just want to spend a year or two playing hockey and partying... they don't exceptionally care about improving themselves significantly with intentions to make it to college or beyond.

That's exactly my point, players that aren't really junior skill level players are playing juniors where fighting is often encouraged at those lower levels. So instead of back in the day, when these kids would have stopped playing competitively at midgets and they never would of have played in a league where fighting was allowed/tolerated/encouraged, they play a couple years of juniors an spend a lot of time fighting. Then, when they age out they still think that is normal behavior playing 3rd or 4th division men's league and you end up with some of the incidents that have been discussed in this thread.

[pizzakid13 5]

in reference to the hollewegg video above, i remember thinking "good for simon." holleweg was a very dirty player who had no problem running guys head first into the boards. in my opinion, when you do something that dangerous, you give up your protection under the "code."

i know most people will say that simon should just tune him up and teach him a lesson but what if simon broke his neck? these kinds of players need to be put in the hospital and maybe those types of really dangerous cheapshots will stop. plus, most of the time, a fight doesnt do it justice. you really cant get a guy good enough to equal the danger in that cheap shot. they'll always turtle or run.

anybody else agree?

[shooter27 116]

I agree that someone needed to teach Hollewegg a lesson but I disagree with the idea that a stick swing like that is the right way to accomplish that. The only way to really feed a guy like that a taste of his own medicine is to really hit him hard with one of those whole body shaking contacts and do it as clean as possible. The problem with doing it like Simon did is that it allows Hollewegg to dismiss it as one whacked out dude swinging his stick instead of it being a message to Hollewegg to stop being a punk on the ice.

[pizzakid13 5]

i just dont see dirty players like holleweg being taught a lesson by a good clean body check. the only way they can is to receive something as dangerous as they are giving out. so, the stick swing was a wild response out of anger but he also could've run him head first into the boards. or maybe pull a bobby clarke and break his fucking ankle. i dont remember guys getting run into the boards back then like they are like today.

[shooter27 116]

I didn't say it had to be clean, just as clean as possible - I know that's a semantic argument, but bear with me. The dirtier you play against a guy like Hollewegg the more he sees it as confirmation of what he's doing rather than someone delivering a message. I know it's a fine line to delineate but with a guy like that you can't do anything that would potentially make him think the way he plays is justified.

[pizzakid13 5]

i guess i am more surprised that today's players don't police the game to protect themselves very well. if they had no tolerance for dirty players and had them hospitalized immediately following a cheap shot that is dangerous, it would probably be eliminated. emphasis on dangerous because i don't want to condone vicious, career ending actions on marginal hockey plays.

i remember somewhere back in the late 90's in detroit a play involving sergei federov. i think it was yzerman that got cheap-shotted and hurt. the next shift, federov went directly after that player and took his knees right out and he was done for the season. problem solved.

[BenderHockey 127]

_{Wow, the both of you are actually advocating taking guy's knees out and directly intending to injure someone else? Classy dudes.}