[youtube width="425" height="335"]http://youtube.com/watch?v=b59LxkvpW8Y[/youtube]

The first thing I’d like to say is that the hit was clean.  End of story, end of outrage, but that’s not in any way what this brief column is about.  Violence is good, it sells the sport.  Hits are why people wear pads, why Alfredson should have kept his head up and why, if the NHL had any remaining mainstream presence, we’d be seeing this clip a few more times on Sportscenter this week.

My problem is that the NHL fan has no idea what’s going to happen next.  Colin Campbell has probably seen the footage at this point; he may very well make a ruling of some kind, perhaps even issue a suspension.  While I feel Mark Bell’s hit was legal, and he probably won’t be punished, I know that it is not a given.  An obscured, no-disclosure disciplinary policy means he could just as likely get 2 games, or 10 and no one outside of Colin Campbell would have any idea why.

We know the league is ‘cracking down’ on hits to the head, but we still don’t know what exactly that means.  Sometimes, it’s Steve Downie grabbing 20 games, other times it’s teammate Riley Cote for 2, or Dallas’ Steve Ott drawing 3 games.  The hits ranged from Downie’s pointless assault in a preseason game to Ott’s hit that did not even draw a penalty from the officials on the ice.

We know as well that it’s a bad idea to use your skate as a weapon.  After a 35 game vacation for cross checking Ryan Hollweg, Chris Simon’s slew foot/stomp on Jarkko Ruutu drew 30.  Chris Pronger, meanwhile, sat 8 games for a similar skate stomp on Ryan Kesler.  Granted, Simon has been something of a basket case throughout his career, but it’s not like Pronger, who has been suspended 7 times previously (and remains one of three players in NHL history to have been suspended twice during the same playoff season) is a model of discipline.

A suspension can only serve as a deterrent when the player has a reasonable expectation of the consequences his actions will demand.  Sure, you can argue that Simon, a habitual offender, could have expected a double digit probation, but why not Pronger?  Why not Ryan Jones (2 games) who cost the Bruins one of their best players - Patrice Bergeron - for the season thus far or Mattias Ohlund (4 games) who outright broke Wild forward Mikko Koivu’s leg  Big numbers seem reserved only for the most heinous incidents, so why not take a run if you know you’re only sitting 2 games?  What’s more important to the Philadelphia Flyers, losing journeyman Cote for 2 games, or rattling a key component of the Dallas Defense in Matt Niskanen?

The real consequence of Campbell’s scattergun policy is a league of players still deluded enough to think they should be policing themselves.  Not that fighting is bad, but it’s ruining the pace of the game.  Dozens of NHL fans each week are frustrated when any decent hit is immediately followed by a momentum-killing exchange of words.  Instead, we get clean hits and stoppages.  Mark Bell should absolutely lay out Daniel Alfredson.  It was the right play, it could have charged his team and changed the game.  Trouble is Bell and his teammates should have immediately skated the other way and attacked the Senator net.  Instead, the situation devolved into pushing and shoving and bullshit tv.

Put the onus to discipline where it belongs, with the league, and leave everyone else out of it.  If players know judgment is going to come after the game, they’re not going to drop the gloves and push for it themselves.  Fights will stay, but not at the expense of the actual sport.