another basketball analogy: bill simmons had theorized something called "ewing theory," where sometimes a team's best player goes down or is traded for lesser players and the team does better without him than it ever did with him. the key example is patrick ewing going down in the '99 playoffs and the knicks making a crazy run to the NBA finals as an 8th seed. there are many reasons that teams succeed when their star goes down; sometimes it frees other guys to step up, sometimes a team's entire game plan goes to setting up one guy when a more team-oriented game might be more successful (especially in basketball), and sometimes it's just a shift in the culture and personality of the team. i don't want to start world war 3 here, but i felt that way about the 2002 maple leafs.
Funny thing is this is happening again, and to NY as well. Now that Anthony returned, Knicks are losers again.
Back to the subject on hand, I think Turgeon should have joined, even if it is to just grab onto an opponent and try your best not to get punched, at least this would prevent odd man attacks. I don't think people should hold this over his head for that long though, he was still in his teens... I've done stupid things when I was past my teens.
Kinda sounds like a poorly thought out 80s type of way to solve a situation.
As it relates to Pierre....gotta wonder what type of guy watches his entire team engage in a melee of epic proportions and does not involve himself in some way.
As it relates to Pierre....gotta wonder what type of guy watches his entire team engage in a melee of epic proportions and does not involve himself in some way.
I certainly think Turgeon should've joined the fight, but I'm not going to judge someone's career on an error in judgment they made when they were seventeen.
Indeed. If we were all judged by things we did when we were seventeen, we'd not be so quick to pass judgment on someone else.
The thing with Turgeon is that what happened in Piestany fit in with the perception later on in his career. I had him down as a bit of a "Tin Man" character and I didn't even know about his role in that fight.
One does have to understand how poisonous what he did was in a team situation. If teammates can't 100% rely on each other to have their backs, it undermines the entire structure of a team. Turgeon may have been soft as butter but he wasn't exactly a small guy, it's not like he couldn't have held as his own half-fighting a Russian skill guy.
Maybe, but like I've said before on here, even guys who never fought you would have a hard time seeing them just sit there. Gretzky would have left the bench and at least grabbed one of the less combatant Russians and held on to him for at least moral support for his team. Adam Oates, Mike Bossy? They'd probably do the same thing and you can bet their Russian counterpart who didn't want any part of the brawl would be looking for them to hold onto as well.
Is there another player in NHL history that you can say for sure would have done what Turgeon did? Mario? Nope. He stood up for Iginla of all people during the 2004 World Cup and actually got thrown out of a 1996 playoff game for excessive fighting. I think even Phil Housley probably would have skated around the ice even if he looked lost.
Turgeon was 6'1" and while his playing weight in the NHL was around 200lbs. let's give him at least 180lbs. at that time in his career. That is still not a shrimp on the ice. The problem with him is that like Lindros the perception of things he did as a teenager followed him like a bad cold. Both players for different reasons weren't well respected on different NHL teams.
i personally don't judge pierre turgeon's career on that incident, which i didn't even know about until after he retired (being six when it happened). not that i was a fan of him anyway.
but it certainly seems like his teammates, coaches, GMs, and opponents always had it in the back of their minds when dealing with him. players develop a reputation, whether as whiners, cowards, me-first guys, daddy's boys, divers, chokers, etc. and it takes a lot to shed that reputation once you get it. i think that probably plagued turgeon's career every step of the way.
cautionary tale to cody hodgson re: developing a bad reputation, by the way. i wonder what guys like pominville, miller, and regehr are thinking given everything that's being aired in the press right now. look at phil kessel (somewhat similar situation to hodgson); it took leading the league in points before he got any respect from his peers; he wasn't last pick in last year's all-star draft because he was the worst player, it was because no one respected him. and back to turgeon, hard to be the captain and leader of twenty other professional hockey players when a lot of them don't totally respect you.
i can just imagine patrick roy in that dressing room rolling his eyes every time turgeon said, "come on boys, let's play like men out there," and roy thinking to himself, "yeah, if you were a man on the ice, my little brother might have played more than six games in the NHL."
so it turns out that turgeon was twice the man we thought he was then.
a few quotes to put this in perspective: steve nemeth was out there trying to break up fights. his teammates were divided about whether he gets off the hook or not. stephane roy praises nemeth, who pulled one of the two russians off of him.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stephane roy
The guy who came in and helped me was Steve Nemeth. He pulled one of the guys off me. Maybe he wasn't throwing punches like the other guys, but I don't think it's fair to say that he bailed out or chickened out. He didn't leave me hanging.
everett sanipass called nemeth a bad teammate for not fighting with the team.
another guy, kerry huffman. was reportedly just out there holding onto a guy and pretending to fight. stephane roy called him out on it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stephane roy
What I do remember is the one guy I saw who could have helped me and didn't-- that was Kerry Huffman. . . . On any team you're going to have a couple of guys who aren't good teammates. And the guy who really let me down-- who was standing right there and watched me trying to fight two guys-- was Kerry Huffman.
an anonymous teammate:
Quote:
I can see that. If someone said that Kerry was a bit of a [cat], I can see that. The tough stuff-- the fighting, anyway-- wasn't Kerry's game.
i think it's one thing for us to be here on the internet on our high horses and talking about how fighting is bad. but, as has been argued above, a team needs to know that every player has every other player's back. when you doubt a guy, especially if he's your best player, that does things to a dressing room that carries over onto what happens on the ice.
I think the "seventeen" aspect is more important here than the "not a fighter" aspect.
Not to mention it's more than a little disingenuous to suggest anyone sitting on the bench could have picked someone being kicked in the head out of all that chaos.
I think the "seventeen" aspect is more important here than the "not a fighter" aspect.
Everyone else was 17-18-19 years old though. Turgeon wasn't just a scrub either, he was slated to be the #1 overall pick in June - and he was. A lot of what he didn't do was a reflection on him whether he liked it or not.
I'm trying to think of a time when a player did something stupid as a teenager but then redeemed themselves later in their career. The first thought to come to mind is Mario. People forget that he was very similar to Lindros in the way that he didn't put the Penguins sweater on his back on draft day. This was because of a stalemate in negotiations. I don't doubt a lot of that had to do with what his agent might have told him, but that followed Lemieux like the plague for a long time. I don't think it was until he won his two Cups and then overcame cancer that people finally forgave him for that. There was a shift in his attitude then. He became a winner, a great captain, a leader, etc. Big change from the sulky and supposedly heartless and selfish player he was perceived as being.
That's the thing with Turgeon, he doesn't have anything that made people's perceptions about him change.
I guess I'll defer to his teammates on that one. I believe at least some of them thought Nemeth had let them down by not taking an opponent, and they are the ones he was responsible to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vadim sharifijanov
everett sanipass called nemeth a bad teammate for not fighting with the team.
Bolded: But those guys with their "let's go!" mentality were responsible for the whole mess in the first place. Should we punish Nemeth for being more mature than Canada's national hockey mentality circa 1987? He didn't want to fight, but went in nevertheless and tried to break up fights, at the same risk of getting beaten up like everybody else. Pretty mature for a guy of 17 or 18 years of age.
Do you think it was right to disqualify both teams? (I do.)
While I fully understand why the IIHF made that decision, a more nuanced ruling would have been better IMO. Something like:
1) 2 year suspension for Davydov.
2) 1 year suspension for the next 4 Soviet players who left the bench.
3) 1 year suspension for the first 4 Canadian players who left the bench.
4) Adequate suspensions for the worst offenders in the fight. Kicking someone in the head with the skates warrants a life-long suspension.
5) Fines for both teams.
+
6) Resume the game the following day, starting at 6:07 of the second period with Canada up 4-2.
Bolded: But those guys with their "let's go!" mentality were responsible for the whole mess in the first place. Should we punish Nemeth for being more mature than Canada's national hockey mentality circa 1987? He didn't want to fight, but went in nevertheless and tried to break up fights, at the same risk of getting beaten up like everybody else. Pretty mature for a guy of 17 or 18 years of age.
Personally I've never had much of an issue with Nemeth. He gets defended in that book as well from the players. Is it Everett Sanipass that says he pulled off one of the Soviets from him? That's good enough for me. I think he has more supporters than detractors from that team.
Everyone else was 17-18-19 years old though. Turgeon wasn't just a scrub either, he was slated to be the #1 overall pick in June - and he was. A lot of what he didn't do was a reflection on him whether he liked it or not.
I'm trying to think of a time when a player did something stupid as a teenager but then redeemed themselves later in their career. The first thought to come to mind is Mario. People forget that he was very similar to Lindros in the way that he didn't put the Penguins sweater on his back on draft day. This was because of a stalemate in negotiations. I don't doubt a lot of that had to do with what his agent might have told him, but that followed Lemieux like the plague for a long time. I don't think it was until he won his two Cups and then overcame cancer that people finally forgave him for that. There was a shift in his attitude then. He became a winner, a great captain, a leader, etc. Big change from the sulky and supposedly heartless and selfish player he was perceived as being.
That's the thing with Turgeon, he doesn't have anything that made people's perceptions about him change.
Alexandre Daigle? Demanding a large contract, then stupid bomb joke, Pamela, etc. After he quit hockey, he returned and became an okay role player.
Turgeon was a heck of an NHL player. His statistics show HOF material. Perhaps, this incident is stopping him from actually making the HOF? As a poster mentioned earlier, all Turgeon had to do was jump off the bench and get somewhat involved. I have no idea why he didn't at least get off the bench. Not sure who the coach was back then, but he should have forced Turgeon onto the ice.
Bolded: But those guys with their "let's go!" mentality were responsible for the whole mess in the first place. Should we punish Nemeth for being more mature than Canada's national hockey mentality circa 1987? He didn't want to fight, but went in nevertheless and tried to break up fights, at the same risk of getting beaten up like everybody else. Pretty mature for a guy of 17 or 18 years of age.
You can't write off Nemeth's obligation to his teammates. Maybe he was more "mature" in his attitude toward fighting than they were. Maybe he was even more correct. But when a general brawl breaks out, you have to have your teammates' backs in that moment, whether you think they are right or wrong. If Nemeth, Turgeon, or anyone else wants to play on a team, you have to accept that it comes with obligations to your teammates.
Now of course Nemeth wasn't just sitting on the sidelines. And in many situations his actions would have been the right thing to do. The question is whether he fulfilled his obligations as a teammate. Only his teammates can really judge that or have the right to do so.
My opinion of Nemeth's action depends to some degree on his motivation. If he was trying to stop the violence in an effort to preserve a spirit of goodwill and mutual respect - if the sight of young hockey players fighting instead of playing hockey turned his stomach - if he privately despaired at the sight of international sporting competition driving countries apart instead of bringing them together - then I applaud his efforts. Even if he was wrong in failing to fulfill his obligation to his teammates, he was wrong in the very best way. If he just wanted to keep them from getting disqualified so they could win the gold medal, I think he had his priorities wrong.
Of course I don't and can't know Nemeth's motivations so my commentary here is intended to reflect on the strange situation, not to judge Nemeth.
... Not sure who the coach was back then, but he should have forced Turgeon onto the ice.
I believe the Coach was Bert Templeton... This particular player always marched to the sound of his own drummer, hardly the first to react "off-code" during a bench clearing brawl or when directly challenged. I typed him a disgusted pacifist at the time, esoteric. Plenty of guys like that around. Carl Brewer was similiar however he was yappy about it and when challenged as a Rookie turtled, somthing that dogged him for the rest of his career.
You can't write off Nemeth's obligation to his teammates. Maybe he was more "mature" in his attitude toward fighting than they were. Maybe he was even more correct. But when a general brawl breaks out, you have to have your teammates' backs in that moment, whether you think they are right or wrong. If Nemeth, Turgeon, or anyone else wants to play on a team, you have to accept that it comes with obligations to your teammates.
Now of course Nemeth wasn't just sitting on the sidelines. And in many situations his actions would have been the right thing to do. The question is whether he fulfilled his obligations as a teammate. Only his teammates can really judge that or have the right to do so.
My opinion of Nemeth's action depends to some degree on his motivation. If he was trying to stop the violence in an effort to preserve a spirit of goodwill and mutual respect - if the sight of young hockey players fighting instead of playing hockey turned his stomach - if he privately despaired at the sight of international sporting competition driving countries apart instead of bringing them together - then I applaud his efforts. Even if he was wrong in failing to fulfill his obligation to his teammates, he was wrong in the very best way. If he just wanted to keep them from getting disqualified so they could win the gold medal, I think he had his priorities wrong.
Of course I don't and can't know Nemeth's motivations so my commentary here is intended to reflect on the strange situation, not to judge Nemeth.
in gare joyce's book, nemeth talks about not wanting to be disqualified. same reason that jimmy waite didn't fight-- wanted to make sure they still had a goalie left if there was still going to be a game.
nemeth was the oldest guy on the team, almost as old as you could be and still qualify for the tournament. he was also one of the few who didn't have a great shot at the NHL and had already traveled with the canadian national team. mike keane said something like, "i understand it; nemeth had to do what he had to do. he was too old to play juniors and he wasn't a real prospect like the rest of us, so if he lost his IIHF eligibility, that was the end of his hockey career."
but then another teammate said something like, "effing nemeth. not only does he leave us to fight on our own, he has the balls to appeal his suspension and apply for IIHF reinstatement while the rest of us are left to hang... but we hung as a team."
gare joyce's book also states (without giving any evidence) that it was nemeth's decision not to fight that kept him off canada's '88 olympic team, even though he was a traveling member of the national team.
You can't write off Nemeth's obligation to his teammates. Maybe he was more "mature" in his attitude toward fighting than they were. Maybe he was even more correct. But when a general brawl breaks out, you have to have your teammates' backs in that moment, whether you think they are right or wrong. If Nemeth, Turgeon, or anyone else wants to play on a team, you have to accept that it comes with obligations to your teammates.
Nemeth saved Stephane Roy, didn't he?
Quote:
Originally Posted by overpass
The question is whether he fulfilled his obligations as a teammate. Only his teammates can really judge that or have the right to do so.
That's where we disagree.
1) Opinions of Nemeth's teammates were divided.
2) If opinion of the teammates is the only factor, where do we draw the line? Let's say Bobby Clarke's teammates wanted him to break Kharlamov's ankle in 1972 - did he just fulfill his obligation then?
Quote:
Originally Posted by overpass
My opinion of Nemeth's action depends to some degree on his motivation... If he just wanted to keep them from getting disqualified so they could win the gold medal, I think he had his priorities wrong.
What I know is that he didn't lose his mind like everybody else and didn't fight, but at the same time got involved and took responsibility (IMO). Whatever his priorities were, he did the right thing in my book.
So who the heck ordered the lights turned off?
