Rick Rypien's Fan Appreciation Night

everyone saw it differently. don’t freak out at another blog manager for having a different point of view.

It’s a pretty black and white situation. Provoked or not, Rypien attacked a fan physically, there’s no room for that.

I don’t think in a situation like this you can “crucify the player without any rationality.” You don’t go into the crowd, period. You don’t physically assault a fan. There is no irrationality as expecting a massive suspension for attacking a fan.

I would be shocked if he is only suspended ten games. And to be honest no one but Rypien knows if he was going to throw a punch, but it sure looked like he was gearing up for one. Not that it matter regardless, you don’t go into the crowd, period.

I would also be surprised if the Canucks didn’t lay their own punishment as well. It’s too good of an organization for something like this to ever happen again. It’s bad for the Canucks but more importantly it’s bad for hockey.

Rule 23.7 states that “Any player, goalkeeper or non-playing Club personnel who physically interferes with the spectators, becomes involved in an altercation with a spectator, or throws any object at a spectator, shall automatically incur a game misconduct penalty and the Referee shall report all such infractions to the Commissioner who shall have full power to impose such further penalty as he shall deem appropriate.”

Should have been an automatic game misconduct.

He was just going to grab him, smile, wink and tussle his hair.

That seems to be the unfortunate thing with most pro sports. If you are getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to do something you quite possibly enjoy most of the time, you should keep your mouth shut and do your job, regardless of how irritated may become because of some little punk who thinks he’s the shit for sitting right next to the tunnel and yelling insults at opposing players who are obviously having a bad night as it is.

Trust me, I’d be pissed off too, and I can’t say that I wouldn’t react the same way if I was Rypien because I haven’t been in that situation. Regardless, he is going to pay for that one way or another.

The most annoying thing is that this little shit is probably gonna start a facebook group about it and get popular for being ‘the guy that was assaulted on national television’.

this will get play in EVERY hockey market, especially Canadian ones, singling out the Toronto Media (as terrible as they are) as the lone runners of an incident like this is kinda goofy.

The fan was standing in his seat, not positioning himself in the player’s way.

In one of the feeds I watched, the announcers were tut-tutting about how fans shouldn’t lean over, but the replay shows that was not the case.

Studies have shown people who call into radio shows are in the lowest 10% IQ range.

Science!

Sean doesn’t even remember high school, remember?

I was simultaneously a nerd and involved in enough sports to never be bullied. Like I said, all nerds have had the Superman physics talk. It’s been done on TV, in movies and on forums like this one before, and that’s just lazy writing. Not to mention the unfunny actors.

You’re one slip away from Two and a Half Men territory, Big Bang Theory. Don’t make any more mistakes.

wow, that’s embarrassing

If you support Rypien on this, you’re out of touch with reality.

Just to clarify, when I say “these kinds of people”, I am not trying to imply that they are somehow inferior to the rest of the population. I have struggled with depression myself, and I know exactly how irrational your thinking can become when you’re at your worst.

Your point about the other team members is bang on.

The people jumping on Manny for saying those things are the ones not thinking straight. You don’t throw your team mate under the bus in public no matter what. If someone is going to do that, it’s the coach or management.

First of all the fan did nothing physically to provoke Rypien. But we don’t know what he said. And I may be in the minority on this one but I don’t think paying money to go to a game should allow fans to yell whatever they want at players. Players have to be professionals and ignore idiot fans and take the high road but we shouldn’t expect more from players than we do from fans.

As for the argument about the stadium I disagree very, very strongly. Fans should be protected from players and players should be isolated from fans. During a game the players should be isolated so they can focus on playing the game. ESPECIALLY at a grass roots level where ignorant parents, siblings, fans, and friends often verbally attack young players who aren’t mentally equipped yet to handle that abuse. How many good young hockey players have to quit the game because of the abuse they take from fans before the situation is addressed? Plus let’s be honest fans don’t go to games to interact with the players in a one on one type manner. Otherwise you would only need three rows of seats. Why sit in the 15th row of the upper deck? It’s certainly not about interacting with players. It’s about cheering and rooting on your team and interacting with other fans. Fan interaction is great off the ice when it is controlled but not during a game.

Hockey is a very aggressive sport where emotions run very high at times and people are going to make a mistake from time to time. Hopefully not very often and when they do they should be punished and deservedly so. But for me you can’t put fans, who may be verbally provoking players or provoking them in other ways, and athletes who are playing a game that brings out powerful emotions close together and then be outraged when something like this happens.

Great post. Really. But you cannot say the fan did nothing to provoke just by what we all saw. I was, obliquely referring to what one of your own fans said about the fans own words.

If he was saying and yelling things in the face of an pissed off guy all hyped on adrenaline from something…that is just a stupid thing to do too. Of course that does not excuse the actions of Ryp.

It does however, speak to the fact that there should not be an open window 10 feet from the visiting bench. That is a minor league feature in an otherwise major league rink. Look around the NHL…you will find there is a reason why they don’t do that in just about every rink in the NHL. There is at least a few feet barrier, or the seats are above the tunnel. The guy was allowed to be at eye level almost of the players.

Can you just imagine if there was a similar window at the ACC for a game vs Ottawa? Or a Flyers/Pens tilt at the Wachovia Centre where the fans had an open window ten feet from the back of the coach, and just over the trainer’s shoulder almost? Anarchy! ;-)

You are talking about how bad it will be for hockey and everything else to have a two foot barrier piece of plexiglass on that area? I don’t get that. The majority of fans may be just as you say, but that does not mean we just trust anyone that buys that seat that night to behave correctly.

So,in obviously just my opinion, we don’t know if the fan was a problem because we don’t know what, if anything, was said. We probably never will. Of course the player made a mistake…but the fan should not be painted as lily white as people are hoping. I suspect as it comes out it will be a touch of grey.

And the almost right you talk about for this access that you seem to think is essential is a little naive my friend. Why bother going to the game? Like if you can’t yell at the opposing players bench unobstructed it will lessen the in game experience? Respectfully, I just cannot agree.

It is not restrictive to ask for a two foot piece of glass so a guy that has had a few cannot get in the face of a person “doing his job” as Manny was trying to say.

You do not get the unalienable right to have that kind of access in probably 90-95% of the rinks in the NHL for a reason.

Or I guess more specifically.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix

Well the Sedins have show up for every single game. It seems like it’s the other players who keep shitting the bed.

If your job was to beat people up… maybe like a bouncer or a fighting instructor and someone was saying derogatory things toward you, you think you would be fired for grabbing their clothes for a second and then letting go?

on whether the Canucks organization feels that releasing him or keeping him on the team will give them a better chance to go on a cup run

Second rate FTW!

Which would be giving him to another team for free.

He would not make it past waivers.

Maybe if we just hang him from a crucifix until he begs for forgiveness?

“Oh Gillis, why have thou forsaken me?”

This is what he wrote over at Hockey Wilderness after I told him to come back.

No, sorry
The hypocrisy of statements like ‘we don’t want to see trolls ruin the relationship between our site and the other SBNation sites’ when it’s a regular occurance within their own community from one repeat offender and that offender is treated with kid gloves kinda justified my decision.

I really hope he comes back. He is a valued contributor and always brought the lulz.

“to prevent” a guy not “for” a guy…