The Two-Line Pass

REMEMBER 1994 EVERYONE?

For a long time, the only two red, white, and blue banner in the rafters at Madison Square Garden bore the number 1, that of goaltender Ed Giacomin, Rod Gilbert’s No. 7.

Giacomin was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1989. The Blueshirts retired his number on March 15 of the same year. He was often spectacular for the New York Rangers in the late 1960s and early ’70s. He was a six-time All-Star and won the Vezina in 1971.

Gilbert’s number was retired in 1979 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame three years later. He scored almost a point a game in his 1,065-game career and never played for anyone else.

For 15 years, Giacomin and Gilbert stood alone. In 2004, they were joined by another Ranger great, Mike Richter. Then in 2006 came Mark Messier’s No. 11. Earlier this year, it was Brian Leetch’s No. 2. Legitimate Hall of Famers, all.

And now, the Rangers have announced, they will retire the numbers of three more Broadway Blue greats beginning in February. No. 9, which belonged to both Adam Graves and Andy Bathgate, and Harry Howell’s No. 3.

Adam Graves, really? The guy who had 616 points in 1152 career games? The guy who broke .75 points per game just twice in his career? The guy who’s only 10th all-time on the Rangers’ points list behind STEVE VICKERS? They’re REALLY stretching their definition of “great” if it includes Adam Graves.

At this point, the Rangers might as well retire the number of everyone who played on the 1994 team. That’d be fine with Bettman, too, as the NHL seems to have an inexplicable love affair with everything about that team. Try watching the NHL Network for an hour and see how many times Messier is doing his best Michael J Fox impression waiting for Bettman to say, “Captain Mark Messier, somethingsomethingsomething!”

Hint: Not less than five.

Meanwhile, the Rangers can retire all the numbers they want. I’m holding out for Jeff Beukeboom Night.

The Quebec government has gone ahead with the decision to prosecute Jonathan Roy, the son of some goalie you may have heard of, for his involvement in a particularly violent fight during last year’s QMJHL playoffs. Roy faces an assault charge that could cost him up to $2,000 and six months in jail.

Here’s the fight in full, as opposed to just the clip of Roy kicking the christ out of that kid and flipping everyone in the building off.

[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESHa9-Czv_A"]

The “fight” was, to be fair, more a pummeling on par with what Alex and his droogs doled out at the beginning of A Clockwork Orange, but regardless, this fight took place within the context of a line brawl in a friggin’ HOCKEY GAME. Should he have gone after the opposing goalie so hard, or continued to beat him when the kid clearly had no desire to fight?

Of course not. If that had been an MMA fight, it would have been stopped far quicker than that. But this is hockey, and whether or not you’re looking to fight, you still need to engage the competitor and defend yourself. If the other goalie had done that, it wouldn’t have looked like nearly as savage a beating.

But one criminal lawyer says the Crown’s decision to proceed with charges sends a strong message that there are limits, even in contact sports where a certain level of rough and aggressive play is expected and the risk is assumed.

“The prosecution is sending a warning that while some things might be tolerated in sports, other actions won’t be tolerated,” said Montreal defence lawyer Robert La Haye. “Rough play and violence, within the norms, is permitted. But the Crown is saying this level of violence is considered reprehensible and prohibited, on or off the ice, and there are norms that shouldn’t be surpassed.”

Well that’s not a good thing. There’s no place in hockey for what happened, but the last thing any sport needs is events on the field/ice/court, short of murder or life-threatening injury, being subject to criminal charges. Someone in Quebec must be running for district attorney.

Jonathan Roy isn’t a criminal. An idiotic rockhead like his father? Absolutely. Should he be banned from playing in the QMJHL this season or in any other? You can make the argument, but he won’t be. But he’s not a criminal. The fact that he might be doing jailtime for this is ludicrous, no matter how much it helps his aspiring hip hop career via street cred.

Brett Favre in action.

Weren’t disgusted enough with the hideous logo, awful color scheme or terrible name? Here’s another reason Anaheim’s new minor league franchise, the Iowa Chops, sucks: it is not above cheap gimmicks.

Hoping to capitalize on all that ESPN furor over whether or not Brett Favre will return to the NFL, the geniuses in Des Moines decided it would be hysterical to offer him a contract! Haw haw haw, get it?

Boy I can just picture the conversations going on in Iowa right now.

“Hey dad, did you see that new hockey team offered Brett Favre a contract?”
“I sure did son! Do you think we should get season tickets?”
“Will Brett Favre actually play for the team?”
“No.”
“Then why would we?”

Yeah, it might get your team’s name on the news, or even Pardon the Interruption, but it’s stupid, cheap publicity stunts like this that make people dislike minor league sports. People will go to hockey games because they like hockey, not because the team offered Brett Favre, Manute Bol, or Jesus Christ a contract.

Favre and the Iowa Chops do have something in common.  They both have received a large amount of publicity the past couple weeks, but for completely different reasons.

Here’s another thing they have in common: Of all that publicity they got, none of it has been good.

“We can offer him plenty of bone-crushing hits, read-and-react plays, and thousands of fans cheering for him, so what’s not to like about that?” said Nitzel.

I legitimately don’t like this Steve Nitzel guy. He seems like a wiener (LOL MEAT PRODUCTS GET IT).

How about this: Brett Favre doesn’t like getting hit and the “thousands” of fans cheering for him would be, at best, 10 percent of what he’s used to.

The Iowa Chops announced their new team name over two weeks ago and have still been receiving a wide amount of publicity regarding the announcement.  Fans, media and the hockey community still are a buzz about the new name, and the team has struggled to keep up with demands for the new Iowa Chops merchandise.

I find that last part nearly impossible to believe, except for people who love camp value. The reason people are “a buzz” (sic) about the name is because it’s dreadful.

Please, Iowa Chops, for the sake of the sport, stop being a hockey franchise.

Not pictured: baby turds

Ah, to be a Stanley Cup champion. Not only do you get the glory of winning the greatest trophy in sport, lifting it over your head, and drinking gallons of cheap Canadian beer out of it, but you also get to spend an entire day with it, to do as you see fit.

Some have baptized children in it, some have dropped it to the bottom of a swimming pool. Dogs have eaten dog food out of it, goalies have eaten cereal out of it. One Cup champion, it’s been rumored, even had sex with his girlfriend in it.

Of all those amusing “We left the Cup on a sidewalk” stories, this is not one.

But no indignity, real or rumoured, compares with what Draper’s newborn daughter Kamryn – diaperless – did to the Cup in June.

“A week after we won it, I had my newborn daughter in there and she pooped in the Cup,” said Draper. “That was something. We had a pretty good laugh.

“It was, well, clean it out. I still drank out of it that night, so no worries.”

I have a lot of questions here.

Why is anyone putting a naked baby in the Stanley Cup? Why isn’t anyone supervising said baby? Why is that something to have a pretty good laugh over? Why are all of Kris Draper’s kids named as ridiculously as he is? What does Bill Wellman, that creep with the white gloves that’s never farther than six inches from the Cup, think of all this?

But most of all, why did Kris Draper drink out of anything, Stanley Cup or not, that once contained his daughter’s steaming infant dump?

Look, there are many, many phrases I never thought I would read. “She pooped in the Cup … I still drank out of it that night” is among them, with all due respect to a pair of Brazilian girls and their love of cups. To be fair though, I never thought I’d type the phrase “steaming infant dump.”