Pack Rules

My wife isn’t much of a sports fan but is very intrigued when it comes to the nuances of the games, regardless of whatever game it happens to be. She is fascinated, and occasionally confused, by the types of things boys tend to do when gathered in concert. Boys, when grouped together, almost unfailingly, tend to share a brain. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing.

She knows about The Code in hockey, partly through my explanations but also via the movies we’ve watched together that shed light on this enigmatic subject. I’ve heard The Code described this way: we all know what it is but none of us know how to explain it.

This mystifying Code was once again put on full display recently when Toronto Maple Leaf Morgan Rielly hammered Ottawa Senator Ridly Grieg with a post-whistle cross check to the neck after Greig had emphatically fired a slap shot into the empty net.

By definition what Greig did was entirely legal while what Rielly did was both illegal and downright dangerous.

But there’s much more nuance to contemplate with this story. Not to justify it, but to at least try and explain it.

For one, Grieg knew exactly what he was doing. As he approached the empty Toronto net you saw him look back to judge how closely he was being followed and how real the threat was of him being stopped.

The backward glance also allowed Greig to gauge (nefariously thinking, at least) if he has enough time to wind up for a slap shot.

Again it needs to be noted that Greig, by rule, can put the puck into the net any darn way he chooses but doing so by way of an extravagant slap shot (while being just 20 feet from the net, no less) he’s explicitly making a statement.

He knows it and the entire hockey world knows it.

Even the refs know it.

If you watch a play from just the right angle (the view from the other end of the ice) you’ll notice one of the distant linesmen throw it into high gear when he sees Greig begins his windup. The linesman knows exactly what's about to go down and is rushing to the scene in the hopes of mitigating the damage.

Even Greig knows it, for that matter. Agitators tend to act that way.

They'll commit an illegal or unethical foul and then act surprised when there’s actual retribution for it which, ironically, is exactly the point they were trying to make.

An agitator wants the reaction. His entire role is to disrupt the other team in the hopes of drawing penalties and getting the opponent off his game.

And Greig did his job. His move was legal, intentional and ultimately successful.

As was Rielly’s - minus the “legal” part of course. Retribution - justified by way of the amorphous Hockey Code - needed to happen. He knew it was called for even though he knew his actions would likely get him suspended. Consider this two rights making a wrong.

Anybody with any hockey experience knows that everything played out exactly as expected. It was a legal play with illegal repercussions. From a pure hockey perspective nothing that happened that day was particularly surprising.

Moving forward, what's most interesting is the debate over what NHL hockey wants to look like in the long term. The sport is caught in the awkward middle ground of a decidedly unbrash sport in a very brash world.

Hockey can, at times, be barbaric in the most barbaric of ways but can also be barbaric in the strangely noblest of ways. Interestingly, that's one of the attractions of the game. It has a code of conduct outside of the actual rules that govern the game.

In this way, hockey has a way of being brutally honest with itself. It strongly resembles the hierarchy you would see within a pack of wolves. Disruptions - even internally - are a threat to the pack as a whole and are dealt with in a swift and unforgiving manner.

The pack, in this case of course, is made up of the hockey fraternity which has a long and storied history of dealing with its own although their mechanism of vigilanteism is absolutely incongruent with how the league wants to govern its players.

While the NHL may like to believe it can fully dictate the conduct of its players, the harsh truth is that street justice will almost always prevail.

This is not to say that Rielly’s actions were justifiable but they do need to be fully understood. No matter how much we want to believe it's the official rules that govern the game, the perceived justice enacted by those who play the game will always play a role.

The NHL office may scoff at this while publicly citing the desire for law and order but they're fully aware the influence - and relevance - The Code continues to have on the game. The mere fact that fighting remains legal in the game shows you that you’re dealing with an entirely different animal here.

And whether it’s wolves or boys, the pack - for better or worse - will always have their say.