Imagine for a second that you're a hockey player. A good one. One good enough to play in the NHL.
One day during a game you go to play the puck along the boards in your own zone, and end up taking a hit and smacking your head on the boards. Head throbbing, shoulder on pins and needles, you get up off the ice, tap your stick to let your team mates know you're coming for a change and start heading for the bench. You see your team mate sitting on the boards waiting for you to get close enough for him to change, so you put your head down and labour to the bench as fast as you can.
Then, when you're head is down, the linesman cuts into your path. You don't see him till the last second, try to side-step, and when a collision is unavoidable you instinctively throw your hands up to protect yourself, as you've been taught to do since you were a child just learning how to play.
This is the life of Dennis Wideman.
Today Dennis Wideman was suspended for 20 games for this this incident.
From that angle the hit looks pretty bad. Much has been said since the hit happened, with most people on one side of the fence or the other, and very few in between.
Some people seem to think that Dennis Wideman, in a fit of rage and frustration, skated up behind the referee and cross checked him. I don't for a second believe that Dennis Wideman purposely tried to hit a referee from behind. Mostly because the man has been nothing but even keeled since he's been here. He never gets to high, never gets too low. I've seen him take big hits before and I've never seen him show any sort of frustration.
This hit happened in the first game of last season. Wideman was having himself a particularity shitty game when that hit happened. He skated to the bench after that hit, sniffed himself some smelling salts, and collected his breathe. While he did these things I remember thinking to myself "Maybe that'll wake your ass up". It didn't, and the Flames lost that game.
The worst thing about Wideman is he has a serious lack of emotion in the game, but that can also be the best part of his game. He remains calm when under pressure and that helped turn his season around and helped make him one of the Flames better defenders as he helped lead the Flames to the playoffs. In fact the most emotion I've ever seen from Wideman on the ice is when they determined this was a goal. (His celebration is around 1 minute.)
That calmness also leads me to believe that Wideman in fact did not get up in frustration and run the ref over.
There are other reasons why I believe he didn't do this on purpose. Since joining the Flames Dennis Wideman has carried himself with class and has been one of the most respected leaders in the Flames dressing room. He has never once been suspended in his 11 year career. He has only had more than 40 PIM's in a season once since 2008-2009 season. There's also this alternate view which looks a lot less deliberate than the angle from behind.
OK, so we've established why I believe that this was an accident and not a predatory hit. What about the punishment?
Personally, after the hit I figured the NHL would suspend Wideman 10 games. I figured the NHL would come out and say something along the lines of "Yes, it was incidental contact but players have to be aware of everyone on the ice and you cannot run over a ref like that." There may have been some moaning and groaning, not from me mind you, and everyone would have just shrugged and moved on.
The skinny of it is Wideman has been absolutely terrible this year, as have the Flames for the most part, so when he was pegged to be suspended I started to get excited about the playing time that would be made available for younger players. (The Flames have recalled Nakladal to take his place on the roster.)
But 20 games? I have a serious problem with that. To me the NHL suspending Wideman for 20 games means that they feel that Wideman purposely and maliciously hit an vulnerable referee from behind.
Dennis Wideman's is a good person, who found himself at the wrong end of a hit and then not long after that in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now he has had his name and reputation dragged through the mud and he is being thrown under the bus by the NHL, and that, quite frankly, is not fair.
One argument that I hear is "zero tolerance" for hitting a referee, and hey, you won't get any argument from me for that! I completely and whole-heartedly agree. Which is why the NHL suspended Yannick Weber for this incident, Jannik Hansen for this incident, and Jake Muzzin for this incident. Milan Lucic punched a ref right in the mouth the same night that Wideman ran over a linesman, he's a superstar and even he had to face the music of NHL justice...
Oh, wait. They didn't? Not a single one of them got a single game for their incidental contact of the referee? What about zero tolerance?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that any of those guys went out of their way to hit the ref. I mean they're all accident's of course. Only Dan Carcillo is dumb enough to intentionally attack a referee.
But zero tolerance is clearly not a standard that has been set by the NHL and I don't see why they have to over-reach and hand someone who has been a model NHL citizen a 20 game suspension for an accident.
Todd Bertuzzi almost killed someone on the ice and got a 20 game suspension for christs sake.
But perhaps I'm just viewing this with my Flames coloured glasses.
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