 Image via Wikipedia |
| Kerry Fraser looks a bit concussed here. How many fingers? Kerry was used to looking at one particular finger in 30 years as an NHL ref. Three blind mice not his fave tune! |
While former NHL referee Kerry Fraser was in Rochester, Minnesota testifying at the Mayo Clinic symposium on concussions in hockey, a number of professional football players were butt-ended with some hefty fines courtesy of ballsy Commish of the NFL Roger Goodell.
Goodell, recognizing the need for some prompt action vis-a-vis helmet to helmet contact in the concussive front lines of the Sunday killing fields warned that if players don't get the hint, the rank and file will start seeing suspensions without pay.
That presents a double whammy - with a built in fine on top of withdrawal of service - that could amount to $175,000 in salary lost for some of the higher paid, high profile NFL defensive players. Several NFL defensive noodle-knockers were fined from $50,000 to $75,000 last week.
All that in a presumed response to a devastating helmet first hit by Rutger University's Eric LeGrand last Saturday. The junior defensive tackle is paralyzed from the neck down. His condition has not changed since he was injured making a tackle on a kickoff return against Army on Oct. 16.
Thus Fraser's message is timely and reprinted here from my column in the County Voice.
Former NHL referee Kerry Fraser was in Rochester , Minnesota
And no, Kerry Fraser didn’t string that ad hominem screed together – the interpretative scrum above is all mine, based on some cogent points and poop popped by the old whistle-blower at of all places the Mayo Clinic in Rochester , Minnesota
Jeff Klein writing in the New York Times (Oct 19), reports that Fraser is now lamenting his own culpability in a tight-lipped NHL conspiracy that sought to play both sides against the middle in a rather concussive and disingenuous debate over violence in hockey.
“Fraser retired at the end of last season after 30 years and 1,904 regular-season and 260 playoff games as an NHL referee, more than any other official, and through all of that he was contractually obligated to make no public statements about the game,” writes Klein. “He is quiet no longer, as he demonstrated when he addressed the Mayo Clinic conference on hockey concussions here late Tuesday afternoon.”
In the widely-disseminated NY Times article that went viral as soon as Klein posted it to the web, Fraser alludes to that conspiracy of silence and specifically referenced twin incidents where his own judgment vis-à-vis unacceptable hits were bopped on the head by the league’s brass.
Fraser told the symposium that two game-misconduct calls for head shots he made - late in his career - were rescinded by league supervisors. Fraser was miffed at NHL VP Colie Campbell - the pug-faced purveyor of the NHL’s ambivalent policing policies - back then, and he remains just as pissed today.
“The N.H.L. has wisely decided — a little too long in coming — to take care of head hits,” Fraser said.
The NHL now has rules in effect that mandate a major penalty and game misconduct for blindside checks to the head and checks that target the head. Fraser said that these rules, while good, do not go far enough.
“(Fraser) was also sharply critical of what he saw as the league’s previous ambivalence on such checks, which he said fostered ‘a culture that allows head hits,’ ” writes Klein.
Fraser also allowed that the NHL on one hand purports to be sympathetic to reducing concussions and yet the league and its minions at the networks – including CBC, Rogers, TSN, crazy as batshit Don Cherry, et al - continue to show highlight packages glorifying those same rock ‘em sock ‘em head-hunting events.
Fraser said that he drank the Kool Aid – along with the other officials - for the bulk of his career, but is speaking out now over a concern for those skilled players whose careers are being ended by a lack of enforcement and the NHL’s continued mute witness to dangerous workplace practices.
Now lest we get a little too damp-eyed here about Fraser’s seemingly altruistic Mayo Munch, we should all keep in mind that his autobiography, The Final Call, dropped to my Kindle and bookstores last Saturday.
Loose lips sink ships; and loose quips? Good for book sales, apparently.
But we shouldn’t allow our suspicions re Kerry’s ultimate motives cloud the issue here.
Fraser freely admits to his own duplicity over thirty decades of enforcing the rules of the game. The whistle-blowing he’s doing now we hope will start a valid discussion amongst the NHL Board of Governors regarding implicit interpretations about what the league (VP of Crime and Punishment, Colie Campbell and the Coquette Commish Gary Bettman) really wants.
I would go a bit further and allow that there’s a schizoid disconnect between say and do extant, and that in spite of the NHL’s collegial banter regarding headhunters, the cheap-shot artists are still getting the benefit of the doubt.
Fraser acknowledged that he and his fellow refs must share the blame. They drank the Kool-Aid for a dream job, benefits, pension and pay.
“We allowed it,” he said. “Shame on us. We were told to provide an entertaining game.”
And now, we are beginning to realize, with the automaton hard gear we’re providing to still formatting, soft-boned kids playing atom, bantam, pee-wee and midget hockey that we have been bringing up our youngsters in a milieu that honors the hit, cheap shot, and even better a trolley ride to waiting ambulance.
And the NHL is setting the wrong standard here.
In favor of putting butts in the seats.
And that’s the real bottom line that ol’ ferret-face, Gary Bettman, has been stumping since he came into the league with some wide-eyed notion that he could sell hockey in places like Nashville, Atlanta and Phoenix, where nuance takes back seat to rollicking NFL-style hits.
Fraser told the Mayo symposium that concussions and checks to the head will continue to be a problem in youth hockey as long as NHL players continue such behavior.
And of course he’s right on the money here.
The cycle of violence has not dispersed.
Because the NHL brass is toting an anti-violence message to its fan base while issuing suspect rulings that favor the entrenched paradigm that includes fighting and pops to the head that endanger the future of its players.
I don't have to say it.
Fraser already did.
"Shame."
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