Goonery

It was another proud moment for the Philadelphia Flyers this past weekend. NHL discipline guy Colin Campbell, apparently playing the role of a parent who has given up, isn't handing out suspensions, but that doesn't mean there weren't plenty of opportunities.

Among them:

Derian Hatcher bit Travis Zajac. No, really, I'm not making that up.

Steve Downie, fresh off his most recent suspension, took a cheap shot at Andy Greene. Pay special attention to the "hit" Andy Greene dishes out to deserve said cheap shot.

After seeing the ante upped, Derian Hatcher tried to kill Alex Steen, and instead took out his own teammate. If you ignore the sad consequences for Lupul, it's actually quite funny that Steen knows that in order to protect himself, he has to get low, because Hatcher is going to try to hit him in the head.

And then Downie, in final attempt to show he's the most gutless player in the NHL, sucker-punched Jason Blake, while Blake was being restrained by an official. Sadly, as egregious as that is, it's actually a step up for Downie, who is at least now cheap-shotting opponents, rather than his own teammates.

What's funny is that any time you ever see a former NCAA player involved in one of these incidents, he's always on the receiving end. Furthermore, how many of these incidents do you see in NCAA hockey? Very few, if any. And ultimately, I believe that should cause the death of fighting in the NHL. There are referees out on the ice to hand out justice. Any time you allow a biased party to start handing out their own justice, you end up with gross over-reactions like the ones seen above. Take the guys who are just out on the ice to cause trouble off of the ice, and you'll end up with less trouble on the ice.