Some “old-school” hockey players in North America have a negative view of young players ’tricks, such as airborne delays. The negative climate escalated in an ugly way last weekend.
6.4. 14:15 • Updated 6.4. 14:15
There is always a gap between generations, and hockey is no exception. The “old school” players who were born in the 1970s and 1980s continue to play in the NHL.
When this generation got their hockey teachings, especially in North American pitches, they played with completely different rules and codecs than they do today.
The new generation, on the other hand, has no experience whatsoever, not even an understanding of what the NHL League was like then. Florida Joe Thornton42, and the New York Islanders Zdeno Chara45, made their entry into the league at the time.
It seems undeniable that the NHL is no longer as physical a league as it was then. The game is required more in other areas than ever before.
There is still a lot of tackling in the NHL, but speed and skill are now at the center of it all. Because of this, there are virtually no players playing clean fighters in the league at all.
Skating and skill level requirements are also emphasized in junior coaching. Like its predecessors, the new generation is not growing into a ruthlessly hard physical puck world, which has led to a skills shortage in receiving tackles, for example.
When young players in the “old world” came to the NHL humbly, today’s young people come there without apologizing. The new generation knows they can and does not apologize for their skills.
The best example of such self-confidence in Finland is Patrik Laine.
Some of the older union boars young people’s blooms seem annoying. In the old days, young people were educated inside and outside the trough, but the culture of subjugation is no longer accepted.
There will be freezes, no bans and you know what the penalties are. As the youngsters then, with a wide smile on their faces, blow the puck at the finish line in front of the veterans ’noses, the two worlds collide.
A successful coach earlier this season, a real old covenant man, John Tortorella piled on an American channel on ESPN rudely about how the skill of young players was met with force before.
Tortorella fired his comments after Anaheim Sonny Milanopreviously coached by Tortorella, and Trevor Zegras plotted a skillful goal.
– That’s a great skill and it’s nice to watch, but I’m not sure if it’s good for the game. If you had done it around the late 90s or early 2000s, you would have had your head torn off, Tortorella said, using confusing violent rhetoric.
That’s what the NHL really did for decades. If someone – then someone other than Wayne Gretzky – imagined or said he was better than others, not to mention the skill of “humiliation”, which was met with violence.
Representing the young star of the NHL Miro Heiskanen22, wonders about Tortorella performing in an ESPN studio.
– Comments like that are a little special. I think tricks like that are just a good thing. It must be remembered that those tricks are really no easy thing that those guys do, says Heiskanen, who plays in the NHL through his fourth season.
– If someone is able to do air waves and others, then why not take advantage of it.
Arizona spilled over
The rhetoric offered by Tortorella was on offer in Arizona last Friday. As Anaheim’s Zegras, known for their tremendous individual skill and variety of tricks, hit the wigs of their second net of the season, the Arizona bench began to boil.
After a while, he is a 14th-season NHL veteran Jay Beagle attacked Zegras chain mate Troy Terryn24, attacked.
Click on the main video at the beginning of the story to see the situation.
Beagle, who had lost his self-control, slammed half his face from Terry into swelling, after which he tried to attack Zegras.
Meanwhile, a former NHL fighter commented on the match on a local television channel Tyson Nash rushed to announce live that this was happening to young people starting to humiliate older players.
According to Nash, you have to be willing to take a “fist in your mouth” if you start gobbling up a tray with skills.
What made the particularly tasteless one-sided fight was that Beagle pulled it to fight an unwilling young player. Even the NHL’s unwritten rules say an opponent in a fight should apply for “their own weight class”.
Defender Urho Vaakanainen moved to the Anaheim organization in the middle of the season. Vaakanainen, 23, who played in the match, thinks Beagle should have looked more closely at who is applying for the fight.
– I would have somehow still understood one or two strokes, but I don’t like to beat a player who doesn’t even hit, but only defends himself, Vaakanainen says.
– It was quite unfortunate, Heiskanen saw the situation.
Commenting on the events on television, Nash tried to correct his remarks a couple of days later. Nash claimed the youth of Anaheim would have laughed and grinned in a 5-0 lead toward the Arizona bench.
– I didn’t see anything like that in my eyes. I guess he’s trying to make himself look better with these comments, Vaakanainen acknowledges.
Heiskanen thinks that young people don’t have to swing in the trough along the walls just because they know how to do tricks that older generations aren’t used to.
– Young people don’t have to have a face there. Everyone gets to play in their own style, so it goes well. Now think of Terry and Zegras, the guys can do all sorts of tricks. It may be frustrating, but for hockey, things like that are purely positive.
Vaakanainen believes that the performances of skilled players will bring a lot of new spectators to the sport.
– That’s what the NHL is trying to do. It’s a gift to the game that we have players like that who do things like that and even at such a high level.
Next season
While the NHL has changed a lot and the game is cooler than before, injustices like Friday aren’t usually overlooked. It is clear that the unfair fight in Anaheim’s locker room was not welcomed.
– Of course, at first he was worried about how Terryn was doing, but the guys were pretty hot after the game, Vaakanainen said.
In the end, it may be a good idea that the teams will not face this season anymore.
– Someone could go to get a refund on a couple of occasions, Vaakanainen smiles.
– But yes, that will be remembered next season as well, the Ducks defender finally shouts.