The NHL's Double Standard

Watch your six Nick!

Over on the Puck Rakers Aaron Portzline is reporting that Jared Boll will have a phone hearing with the NHLtomorrow for his hit on Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.  This will result in an almost certain suspension for Boll, and it should be highly entertaining to watch the department of player safety describe how a hit coming at you from the front, that somehow manages to make incidental contact with your chin is a suspendable offense, while the blind side hit on Nick Foligno that gave him a concussion did not even merit a minor penalty.
This is, of course, because the Blue Jackets set a modern record for futility by losing their first 8 games, and punching themselves out of the playoff race in the first three weeks of the season.  Ergo, a different standard must be applied.  Nick Foligno plays on this team, and is therefore not deserving the protections that must be afforded to other players.  I mean really, who cares if a Blue Jackets player gets hurt?

The NHL officials are active conspirators in this, and have been since the Blue Jackets came into the league.  It's not the 'gosh, we're gonna get out there and screw those guys' kind of conspiracy, but it is a firm reluctance to make any concession that could possibly be seen as aiding this team.  Their reasoning is that it's not the officials job to make this a real franchise, with a real winning team, and they are correct.  However the day to day expression of this results in penalties called on the Blue Jackets that are simply not called on other teams.  Don't read me wrong here, this is not to say that the officials are the cause of our problems.  They are not.  We are the cause of our problems.

So if you think I am full of it, please provide me with a listing of all the major interference penalties that the officials have called this year.  I think it's going to be a pretty short list. The reaction of the officials on the ice is unduly harsh, and is not comparable with their performance on other ice.

So here we go again.

GO JACKETS!!