My point was just that every team has players that are willing to execute that headshot when they know they have to get a good check on a guy, be it because he’s a skill player or because they have to retaliate. I’m sure all of them would prefer to get him in the chest and rattle him, not injure him, but no player, and certainly no organization or fans are dirty because they have players that are willing to execute a headshot with their shoulder.

Philadelphia is on a whole other level. You see players actually leave their skates and lead with the helmet. Crazy superman checks, and then they act surprised when they end up with a 20 game suspension.

I have to agree with Sleek on the Pronger thing, where I just think he’s more under control. I haven’t seen him really go after a skill guy since Edmonton. I think his elbows now are reserved for the people actually getting under his skin, which I’d probably attribute to the fact that Anaheim has its own enforcers to do that job. Philly would probably be the same for Pronger in that respect. I feel like Kronwall, on the other hand, pulls back sometimes. I think if Kronwall became a Flyer, he’d really let loose with some of those aerial hits.

Don’t even get me started on Colorado. It took a career ending injury for them to put some quality enforcers back on their team. I blame so much of the Moore incident on the way they treated the Naslund hit. Say what you want about Philadelphia, but if they injured a guy in their division last game, they will clear the benches for you. The Avs fought something like four times, (two of which were Worrell) and wanted it to be over. If you’re going to cheapshot someone, and a player on EVERY hockey team inevitably will, you’d better be ready to back it up, or at least protect the guy who executed the cheapshot. Even Aebischer should have been hitting the heavy bag before that game.

I generally don’t have my self-worth tied up in anything the Red Wings or their fans do/say (or the Ducks and their fans do/say for that matter). I was, more than anything, commenting on how much Red Wings fans seem to have their self-worth tied up in the reputation of their team, as though they are “classy” by association with the franchise, and can discuss other organizations with snobbery. That’s funny to me, sincerely.

I, as I said repeatedly, thought it was a clean hit. And I thought the Brown hit would have been clean a few years ago when Scott Stevens was hitting everyone a second late, but was recently outlawed by Rule 56.4/.5. However, in discussing the Brown hit with Joe, Joe seemed to care about the headshot more than the position of the puck. He took issue with the cleanliness of EVER going for a player’s head. If that’s the standard of dirty, there’s no question to me Kronwall knew he was going to run through Havlat’s head with his shoulder, and crouched to jump into the hit on the follow through (though not before impact). I think that’s a clean hit, but I don’t see how anyone who cares about head shots and the health of players (especially concussion-ridden players) could agree.

And as far as people saying things to make them true? You’re kidding right? I mean, you have heard of East Coat bias? You realize that no one stays awake to watch pacific time zone games before they write stories about how Kobe’s shooting or how Bonds was hitting? And two years ago, a handful of hockey writers (who voted for Brind’amour) are writing stories about how Pahlsson was overlooked for the Selke because they finally saw him play in the playoffs? The national commentary on the Ducks is all that hockey fans outside of Canada (god bless their devotion to the sport that they actually watch every NHL market’s games) have to go on until the playoffs start. They hear we’re dirty, and it’s a good storyline, so they run with it. We are derided in national commentary the same way the Wings are exalted. The assertion we’re dirty becomes a personal attack on our players and then onto us as fans as though that’s relevant. And the assertion that Detroit is classy gets transferred onto ALL of its players (headshot takers or not) and its fans as though that’s even realistic.

It’s my right as a Californian to complain about national sportswriters/commentators, who write about our teams in the playoffs without watching a single game we play, and then craft their storylines out of laziness. And make their playoff picks with the same vigor— I think it was 1 for 7 on the ESPN crew picking the winner of the Ducks/Sharks series. Keep reading those box scores, Bristol.

Actually, it was HNIC that said clean on Brown; Versus said dirty, and emphasized the headshot issue. But a month later, you could hear them swallowing their words as they called Kronwall’s hit “devastating” but clean (because suddenly a shoulder to the head was an ancillary issue). And I give the NBC crew credit for talking about Kronwall’s hit on Carter instead of the Brown hit before Game 3 between the Ducks/Wings.

I won’t say that both hits were Interference (though I will give the refs some leeway on spotting the puck along the boards in Havlat’s case), but both were definitely headshots, only no one cares after Kronwall’s hit. I think the refs do, though. If you think of Ducks/Wings as a contrast in reputations, I think Campbell’s had the officials watching tape on Kronwall. They’re going to assume that every hit he throws is bad, so they don’t miss one like they did with Carter. For that, more than anything, I’d say to Detroit fans, How does it feel to get reputation calls the other way for once?