Sens at Land's End

Last night I watched this new sitcom, The Return of Jezebel James, because I really like Lauren Ambrose and I was hoping it’d be good. Having seen it, I am not really sure how they got good actors to be involved with it. Maybe I just don’t get traditional sitcoms anymore. Actually, that might be it. I was watching it and thinking it seemed hopelessly out of date. Parker Posey also is not in her element. Dianne Wiest is on it. Why? I don’t know.

But I mention it because there was a scene where the main character was wearing a New York Islanders jersey with Brendan Witt’s name on it and talking about how satisfying watching hockey was. Random! She’s right, though — it is satisfying.

Now we must update the Pronger stomp situation: the NHL “found a new camera angle” (riiiight) that showed the stomp more clearly, so they had another look at it and today suspended him for eight games. I am conflicted about this. While I am glad he’s being punished, there are a few things that still bother me:

1. They “found a new angle.” My ass they did. We are supposed to believe that the NHL doesn’t have access to every possible bit of footage right away? I am 100% convinced that the only reason a suspension was considered was that there was enough outrage among hockey fans, sports media, and other hockey players that the league had to do damage control.

2. Eight games. Chris Simon got 30 games for his stomp. I don’t think the two situations are exactly comparable — for one thing, Simon was coming off a recent 25 game suspension and Pronger was not (although, he has been previously suspended twice for one game each time in the last twelve months, and it isn’t a big stretch to argue that either of those suspensions could/should have been longer). Additionally, Simon’s stomp was a bit more vicious than Pronger’s, in my opinion. However, I still think eight games is a bit short for what he did. 15 would have seemed reasonable.

3. I also think that, given the fact that the Ducks have nine regular season games left — yeah, he’s going to miss eight of nine (why not just go with nine and say he’s suspended for the rest of the season? I have no idea) — this suspension comes off looking a hell of a lot like a nice vacation handed to dear old Prongs by his buddies in the league head office so he can be good and refreshed before the playoffs start. It seems to me he should at the very least be missing a couple of playoff games for this one, and if he weren’t a star player on a team in a market where the league is desperate to build its audience I bet he would be. I hate the fact that you can basically predict the course “justice” is going to take in the NHL based on where a player plays and how famous he is. I would love to see what would happen if a little-known player laid a similar bit of violence on someone like Sidney Crosby. He’d probably be banned for life.

It is complete bull, and the NHL rates a big thumbs down from me for the way they handled the entire situation.