Talk Is Cheap and So Are Hits NHL Players Taking

Cheap shots. Dirty tricks. Borderline hits. They keep on happening, but no one seems willing to step up and do anything about an increasingly serious problem facing the NHL.

Mike Modano, the league’s leading scorer, is sidelined four to six weeks with a knee injury, courtesy of a borderline hit by well-documented cheap-shot artist Bryan Marchment. All Marchment gets is a three-game suspension and $1,000 fine.

That’s a four- to six-week absence for a player who can help sell the game with his brilliant speed and skill balanced against a three-game suspension for a guy accused of dirty tricks for years.

“The league always tries to make its decision based on intent, the severity of the injury and the background of the player involved,” Stars G.M. Bob Gainey says, trying to hold back his anger. “When Marchment was assessed a match penalty, that meant someone thought there was an intent to injure--and that’s a clear mandate to the league to act on.

“Three games? If my information is right, this guy has had problems with a guy on his own team after he hit him low in practice. My best player is on the sideline for four to six weeks--and Marchment gets a slap on the wrist? I thought we addressed this issue after so many players were injured last season.”

So did I, Bob. In fact, the league’s board of governors met just last week in an attempt to find out what has happened to scoring in the game. Well, some of that scoring is walking on crutches.

“Intentional or whatever, it’s the way Marchment plays. As a team opposing him, you have to deal with that, be ready for him,” says Stars Coach Ken Hitchcock. “He’s a step-up guy. He attacks the rush. He doesn’t defend it.”

That’s Hitchcock’s diplomatic way of saying, We were 36-6-7 last year when Modano registered at least one point and we are 16-3-3 under those conditions this season , and this goof comes along and puts our season in jeopardy. In an era where players seem to have less respect for each other, somebody has to draw the line on acceptable behavior. More scrutiny is necessary. With 38 points in 29 games, Modano was flying. Now, he may not even be able to play for the United States in the February Olympics.

“I didn’t know if it was legal or not until I saw a replay the next day,” Modano says, shaking his head and putting his leg out front to show what he viewed on the videotape. “I definitely had a hard time dealing with the injury. I’m playing for a new contract, the team has a chance to win the Stanley Cup and all of that hard work gets put on hold. It isn’t right.”

Marchment claims referee Mark Faucette congratulated him on a good hit, but it was linesman Dan Schachte who assessed the kneeing major and match penalty. Says NHL Vice President Brian Burke: “Although the hit by Marchment included upper-body contact, it also contained significant knee-to-knee contact that caused an injury. The league cannot tolerate this type of dangerous hit.”

Cam Neely retired in the summer of 1996--the result of an illegal hit delivered by Ulf Samuelsson several years earlier--and Peter Forsberg was never the same last season after he was hit illegally by Todd Simpson. Rob Niedermayer, Pat LaFontaine and others also were taken out by cheap shots. They keep on coming.

The solution isn’t rocket science. You have Marchment, Darius Kasparaitis, Samuelsson, Dale Hunter, Claude Lemieux, Simpson and Rich Pilon always in the middle of such controversy. The wanted list of cheap-shot players is not that long--so act on it now.

“I know it’s been brought up before,” Modano says. “But maybe a guy should be suspended for as long as the player he hurt is out of the lineup. He’s going to miss three games. And I know I’m going to be literally climbing the wall after sitting around.

“I’ll go crazy. I can’t watch any games--I’m so . . . off! I’ve waited nine years for everything to come together like this. I was going so good. The team was going so good. . . . And now this.”

Borderline hit? That we continue to talk about cheap shots is borderline insanity.