There’s been some debate about these new Broad Street Bullies. Are they playing too close to the edge? Are they really adhering to hockey’s unwritten code that lets players police misbehavior through fighting, or are they spinelessly dishing out cheap shots? Fortunately, all NHL content can and does appear on Youtube, so we can actually take a look at all this so-called dastardly shit and decide for ourselves.

After the jump, Michael Fichman looks at the new-gen Flyers’ penchant for a bit of the rough stuff.

The Flyers are back. They’re tearing off wins and the rest of the league hates them because they are dirty sons of bitches. Every week, another Flyer gets suspended for a gross violation of hockey’s inscrutible code of conduct. Yes, these are the Flyers we know.

Naturally, there’s been some debate about these new Broad Street Bullies. Are they playing too close to the edge? Are they really adhering to hockey’s unwritten code that lets players police misbehavior through fighting, or are they spinelessly dishing out cheap shots?

Fortunately, the NHL has the most forward-thinking policy with digital content. All NHL content can and does appear on Youtube, so we can actually take a look at all this so-called dastardly shit and decide for ourselves. I’ll rank each major incident in terms of dastardlyness on a scale of zero to five Dastardlies. Zero Dastardlies for a non-offense, Five Dastardlies for a Marty McSorley stick-to-the-head that will land you in criminal court.

OK, let’s look at the three suspension-causing incidents this season, in reverse chronological order.

In this one, Randy Jones of the Flyers jams Partice Bergeron’s dome into the boards, wrenching Bergeron’s neck and rendering him a motionless starfish on the ice. This looks worse than it really is, in terms of the check’s legality. From a young age, hockey players are taught not to stop near the boards, only against them. In my days playing, I saw a good few injuries that resulted from awkward falls where the player impacts the boards somewhere above his waist. Bergeron shouldn’t have stopped where he did, he set himself up to get hit like that. On the flipside, you are taught never to hit somebody from behind, especially when they are in that danger zone just off the boards.

Dastardlies: 1

Jones got a two game suspension for this — more of a gesture by the league office than a real punishment, probably because of the shared blame between Jones and Bergeron.

OK, now we’re getting into the realm of hyperviolence. Flyer Jesse Boulerice crosschecks Ryan Kesler in the face behind the play for pretty much no reason at all. Notice the time and the score — it was during garbage time in a decidedly Flyers-tilted blowout. That’s pretty fucked up. I mean, you’re allowed to fight the guy for chrissakes, why not just do that?

Dastardlies: 5

Boulerice was suspended for 25 games for that hit — equal to the longest suspension served in league history, excluding lifetime bans.

Here, they Flyers’ Steve Downie absolutely destroys Ottawa’s Dean McAmmond’s whole world in an exhibition game early this fall. Now, aside from the fact that Downie seems to have taken far far more than the permissible three strides before contacting an opponent, he violated a well known rule of hockey: Don’t leave your skates to hit somebody, you stupid asshole. How do we know Steve Downie is a stupid asshole? Well, let’s just say the guy has a history:

Yeah, beating the hell out of a guy on a face-off when he isn’t paying attention — not so cleanly within the rules. But Downie isn’t the button down type, he brings his lunch pail each and every day. Here’s a video of him knocking three of his teammates teeth out with a crosscheck during down time in PRACTICE:

It was later revealed that the motive behind this was the teammate’s unwillingness to get ass naked for some sort of hazing ritual. Can’t blame him, that Downie guy might rip your dick off.

Dastardlies: 7

I know the scale is only up to five, but Downie gets bonus points. Oh yeah, and did I mention that Downie was suspended for so long for the McAmmond hit he was cut from the team?

Total Dastardlies: 13

This will be a useful statistic once we start measuring everything else in Dastardlies.

Don Cherry’s suit: 90 Dastardlies

OK, so where do we stand? Are the Flyers really just a bunch of goons or is this a string of coincidences? Well, toss in the fact that the Flyers are the league leaders in penalty minutes (as of this writing), and you have a pretty convincing case that this team is thirsty for blood and doesn’t really care how it comes by it. Fortunately, they win too, so it’s hard to knock the hustle, even if it means taxing their rookies a quarter season’s worth of suspension for gross misconduct. And yes, because this is Philadelphia, we obviously love the fact that the home team is a dirty squad of rule-traipsing convicts. Imagine where they’d be if they still had Billy Tibbets on the team — he was convicted of rape, assaulting a police officer and intimidating a witness. Sounds like a born Flyer to me. Can you say double first place?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 11:53 am.