Kronwall Kronwall's Havlat

update: Sportsnet's Mike Brophy's take

First of all, it always amazes me how stupid hockey players can be. You have a guy who, who knows, could be in a coma on the ice and they are stepping all over him. It was the game before this where one of Chicago's players' heads nearly got taken off with a skate blade to the neck. Now Havlat is laying there, unconscious, and they could have decapitated him by stepping in the wrong spot.

As I was saying the other day, hockey is like no other sport in the world, except organized fighting and lacrosse, where violence outside the confines of the game is not only accepted, it is a marketing tool for the league. If you saw two basketball players, two football players, two baseball players, or two soccer players fighting, they would get tossed from the game. Those sports live (for the most part) without fighting. For some reason, in hockey, passion and violence go hand in hand; you can't have one without the other. Football is a contact sport. A hard hit is accepted as such. How many times have you seen a guy get blocked from the blind side and just get demolished? There is never a brawl afterward. It's part of the game.

I say F*** the hockey purists who say fighting is necessary. I've watched the Olympics, the World Championships, the World Juniors, there is no more chippiness or dirty hits than there is in the NHL. And the game is just as entertaining without fighting. I think hockey's excuse to let the players police themselves is one of the worst arguments in sports. Back in the old days when that statement was even truer you had line brawls and Mike Milbury in the stands whacking guys with shoes (seriously, look it up). These are the types of athletes you want policing themselves? They can't police themselves.

And to address Kronwall's hit, it was dirty and he should be suspended. He left his feet, I don't care if it was before or after the hit, and any time the league can review hits and see clearly an intention to hurt another player with a devastating hit to the head when he's not looking, then a lesson needs to be sent to the players doing these things. Unfortunately, there is no suspension and Havlat is now questionable for game 4.