Two Minutes For Inconsistency

The big issue in the NHL playoffs right now is the injury to Sidney Crosby. It had looked like Pittsburgh was headed straight to the final, carried by their star forward and another Washington collapse. But now Crosby has suffered another concussion, the fourth of his career. So even if Wayne Gretzky's scoring records are out of reach, at least he has a chance at Eric Lindros's concussion record.

The reaction to the injury has gone in two different directions. Some people regret seeing the game's top player sidelined during the most important games of the year. Others are telling anyone who'll listen that it was just an unpreventable accident, nothing could be done, that's hockey, you know. Of course, the latter reaction is the normal way of these things. At least half of a Canadian hockey analyst's job is trying to justify violence in the game and reassure everyone that today's controversial act was not deserving of a penalty/suspension/criminal charges/whatever.

But this incident seems different. Lots of the national hockey media has been genuinely shocked and troubled by this, and they're starting to break from the usual script. They aren't quite at the let's-do-something stage, but they're getting close to the I-don't-like-the-way-things-are stage.

But I'm not really on board with them. I'd love to see the skilled players show their talent as much as anyone, but I'm way past hoping that they'll be protected, and I'm just refreshed that some people in hockey nation are showing logical consistency. I don't agree with the talking heads brushing this off as "just a hockey play," but at least they have a world view that can actually exist. On some level they understand that if the game is going to be as violent as they want it, they're going to have to put up with star players getting knocked out of the game on a regular basis. Or possibly they even like the idea that injuring an opponent is a legitimate tactic. Whatever; at least they're not confusedly stammering questions about how this could happen, forgetting that a month earlier, the victim slashed a guy's finger off and everyone shrugged it off.

Essentially, this is another case where you have two opposing points of view which no one seems to notice are opposing. Of course, you just have to listen to people complain about politics for a while and you'll hear complaints that contradict themselves. The government should give to the poor and lower taxes. We should protect the environment and there should be less regulation. And now you can add, we should have a violent sport where no one gets injured. Looking at it this way, we should have new respect for American politics. It may seem terrible how two sides can be so antagonistic. But at least they've figured out that they disagree with each other; lots of disagreements don't even get that far.