Reaction to Simon

With work being in the busy time of year and paying closer attention to the All Carolina Conference Tournament (watching Dook lose is always fun) I went to bed early last night and missed seeing the Chris Simon-Ryan Hollweg incident until this morning.

The video of this is all over the place and I am not going to sit here and add my $.02 in estimating the length of suspension.

But in just the past month the NHL has faced down the Chris Neil-Chris Drury "incident", the Tomas Kaberle-Cam Janssen incident, and now Simon-Hollweg. I think the question that has to be asked, especially from the Ultimate Fighting on Ice Fans, is why are the "known fighters" "instigating" these things? I don't want to hear about how the whole "instigator rule" is to blame for this. Had Simon dropped his gloves and started punching Hollweg, Simon would have likely still have been ejected last night, but he wouldn't be facing down a suspension this morning.

It is easy for everybody to roundly condemn late hits and cheapshots with the stick. But look at the second vido JP posts here, with the exception of Todd Bertuzzi and Dino Ciccarelli, every single player mentioned as taking a cheap shot has a reputation of being a fighter and even then, I doubt that Bertuzzi or Ciccarelli would ever be considered for Lady Byng consideration.

Hollweg is by no means a saint but neither is Mr. Donald Brashear and what McSoreley did to him was just as uncalled for. But again, why are the fighters "leading the way" in creating these ugly incidents?