Halfway Home, but With Issues

With an exciting 3-1 win last night over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Detroit Red Wings are two victories away from a twelfth Stanley Cup. Too bad the National hockey League doesn't want it to happen.

The NHL is bending over backwards to make the series tight. Most notably, the powers that be rescinded an instigating a fight penalty against the Pens' Evgeni Malkin because it ordinarily would have meant an automatic suspension. It would have meant that a Star Player would have missed game three of the Finals, and we can't have things like rules getting in the way of the hopeful coronation of new Cup champions.

The Wings for their part are saying the right things: it doesn't matter, it's just hockey, and so on. But it does matter. I'm about to say something that I think will draw the ire of many of my Canadian friends, but I've said it many times before and I stand by it: rules have to be enforced no matter when the transgression occurs. Rules are part of the game. If a penalty calls for a suspension then it calls for a suspension, whether it happens in an October game or in Game Two of the Stanley Cup Finals. Otherwise the League should simply own up and drop all rules and let teams bloody up each other.

If depravity is what you want, then at least drop any semblance of civility and not pretend that you actually care about the integrity of the rules. If Detroit should lose this series I will be the first and loudest crying foul.