Don Cherry's Hockey Greats and More by Don Cherry

Author:Don Cherry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Published: 2018-10-22T16:00:00+00:00

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The biggest reason today’s stars are not protected is the instigator rule. It was brought in when Gil Stein was running the NHL in 1992. The rule stated if you started the fight, you’d get an extra two minutes, along with a five-minute major and a 10-minute misconduct. So if someone came to Crosby’s aid when Methot was doing his number on him, they would have gotten 17 minutes in penalties. If someone from Boston went after Cooke after his hit on Savard and Cooke turtled, the Bruins would have had to kill a seven-minute power play.

The NHL Board of Governors were worried at the time that the enforcers were going to start to get into fights with the stars. Very rarely did an enforcer get into a fight with a star that couldn’t fight, but one morning the board of governors woke up and started worrying about that situation. A lot of hockey people started saying that this rule was going to cause a lot of problems on the ice. So the next thing the governors wanted us to believe was that the instigator rule would crack down on fighting, and the less fighting there was, the more Americans would like hockey. When I first heard someone say that on the air, I thought they were joking, but unfortunately they weren’t. Right…American fans don’t like fights. Are they crazy? I played all over the United States, and when there was a save, they’d give a little cheer; when there was a hit, they’d give a little bigger cheer; when there was a goal, they’d give a little bigger cheer; but when there was a fight, they’d go nuts. When I was coaching Colorado and the Stanley Cup champs came in, we’d get around 12,000 fans; when the Broad Street Bullies came to town, it was a complete sellout, with another 2,000 fans waiting to get inside. To say American fans don’t like fights is nuts.

The NHL can never take out the instigator rule. Once you put something like that in, it’s impossible to reverse. If the NHL said that the instigator rule was gone, they would get crucified in the press. The media would say the league wants more violence and that vigilante justice is barbaric. The fans would like it, the players would like it, the superstars would like it, but the press would go bananas and the NHL can’t go to war with the press, so the instigator rule is here to stay.

The other thing that changed was the role of the enforcer. When I was coaching the Bruins, all my tough guys played. In the 1977–78 season, Terry O’Reilly led the team in points and in penalty minutes. That season, the three tough guys on my Bruins—O’Reilly, Stan Jonathan and John Wensink—had a combined total of 178 points and 500 minutes in penalties, with 35 fights. Al Secord went on to score 50 goals. They all played regular. Same with the Flyers. Schultz and their tough guys, they all played regular.

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