I agree that a message needs to be sent, but I haven't seen a legitimate message proposed yet. You can't go and give another dirty hit back, otherwise you're not solving anything and you're only increasing the odds on another dirty hit to a Bruins player. You also don't target one player, that's along the same lines. What you do is you put a body on any opposing player with the puck. You don't give a dirty hit and aim to intentionally hurt a player, but you hit them as hard as you can. You can do a lot of damage if you control the physical play. Controlling the play will lead to more scoring chances and less of a chance for dirty hits to your own team.

Again BookBoy you're correct.  The Stars were fedup of having to pay the price for Avery's behavior.  Hit the Pens hard, all of them !  I'm sure some of the Pens will look at Cooke and blame him for the bumps and bruises they receive.
The 18th is too far and BADHABITUDE back me on this one.
All of you talking about the Bruins  heart,  pride, and self-respect ,  I hear you !
Tomorrow nite against the Leafs (one hell of a goon team) will be a statement game.  If the Bruins play like a team that is not mad or a no show this season is over.  Savard cannot go down like that for nothing and the players must do it for him.
Tomorrow , no heart , season over.
P.S. sorry LoveRealHockey it happens to be your Leafs.

this is time for redemption. If i were claude i would show pictures in the dressing room of the cooke hit and sav being carried out with a stretcher and not say a word.

getting cooke back will not be the right form of justification. Cooke took out our star forward , now we need to run at their star forward(s) . I wish begin could do it we can afford not have him in the line-up if he were to get suspended.

if i were crosby i would have beaten up cooke myself to save possible retribution from the bruins.



anyhow, i guess in this case i am a proponent of the machiavellan school of thought " MIGHT MAKES RIGHT"

In Response to Re: Send a message on Mar 18:


I didn't miss the message. It's just a stupid, counterproductive message that turns the Bruins into the goon squad, which isn't going to accomplish anything.

Again...have you followed hockey for any length of time? How do most SUCCESSFUL respond to situations like this...at the Major Junior or pro levels?

kENNEDY,  agree that goon antics a la Bertuzzi is not needed although there are other ways to hurt a team.

I cannot believe no one has mentioned the most ironic part of this - that Matt Cooke was Marcus Naslund's teammate on the Vancouver Canucks during the infamous Moore-Bertuzzi incident.  The first Canuck-Av game after Moore gave Naslund a concussion with a hit to the head on a vulnerable player, Cooke decided he was the one to make Moore pay.  They fought, and Cooke got cleaned; that had a lot to do with Bertuzzi deciding Moore still hadn't paid for his hit on Naslund.

Naslund was never the same again.  Moore never played again.  Cooke continues to throw the kind of hits to the heads of vulnerable players that started that whole mess despite this.  Tell me how fighting him, hitting him, or suspending him will make a bigger impact than playing an essential part in one of the ugliest incidents in hockey?  The NHL can't suspend him for life; the union will never let them (another joke - protect the a-holes at the expense of the union-members they hurt).  The only way to get this guy, and crap-weasels like him, it to make him a bigger liability than he is an asset.  That's the Machiavellian message here.  "You keep sending this guy over the boards and we will continue to take liberties with your team and target your meal tickets."  Maybe they retaliate, and maybe it becomes a feud - and maybe then the NHL realizes it needs to step in and legislate players like Cooke out of jobs.

In Response to Re: Send a message on Mar 18:


I been a hockey fan for 50 years. If you think this is a "a stupid, counterproductive message", I say it's you who doesn't understand one of the prime underpinings of the game - BE TOUGHER than your opponents. You assumed "goon squad". I never said that. I say hit him in the face while he's looking right at you. No cheap shots; no goon work. Every hockey fight is an attempt to hurt an opponent - don't you understand that?

If it helps you, have Mr. Thornton say to Mr. Crosby BEFORE he hits him in the face, "Mr. Crosby - I respect you and love what you've done for the game of hockey, but your teammate, Mr. Cooke, is a rat-faced, cheap-shotting weasel. Please accept these shots to your face in the spirit that they are given, as a message to your entire team to rein in Mr. Cooke immediately or this directed punishment on your sainted, Canadian body will continue."

Feel better about it now?

In Response to Kennedy97:

I just reread my snarky last message. I apologize. I don't want to get into a name-calling discussion here. I'm not even really disturbed at you - I'm mad at the Bs.

I don't want them to turn into a goonish, non-skill team. I simply want them to send a LOUD, definitive message to the rest of the NHL that these cheap shots will not occur without retribution.

Suitable tactics are still fodder for our discussion.