Animals
I tried not to write this post exactly like this. I waited, and tried not to go completely nuclear.
I sit four rows behind Steven Kampfer's parents. I know this because last night, when Steve Kampfer laid on the ice after being assaulted from behind by Andrew Conboy and then slashed in the head by Corey Tropp, one group of enraged Michigan fans was even more shocked than the rest of the crowd. Kampfer's mother went down to the State bench and started screaming. An usher came up to restrain her, and she cried out "that's my son." Another relative was looking around incredulously, crying, panicking, her hands waving in the air pointlessly. It's the kind of random motion you make when something has to be done and you're totally helpless. Kampfer's dad left, and I thought about following him.
Later Comley would relate that a Michigan fan broke into the locker room and tried to fight Tropp; multiple reports say it was him. I wish I, and about 200 students, had been there, too. But that's the difference between men and pigs like Conboy and Tropp: we weren't.
I thought maybe I'd be less livid after sleeping on it. I'm not. What happened last night was the most disgraceful thing I've ever seen at a sporting event, and if either of those two animals ever plays against Michigan again I'll be hoping they break their necks. That is not a kind or noble or understanding thing to say, but it's true. That was disgusting. Both should be kicked out of the CCHA, period.
Someone who should also be gone: Kevin Hall. Hall watched Conboy pull all sorts of crap, including punching Tristin Llewellyn in the face as he looked at it directly, and didn't put a stop to it. Given the opportunity to boot him off the ice with a ten minute misconduct for unsportsmanlike, he instead turned it into a minor and let Conboy loose with under a minute left. He lost control of the game. He's an idiot. He should be fired.
And let's not exonerate Comley here. He recruited Conboy and knew exactly what he was getting. Conboy's older brother was booted out of SCSU for anger management issues (side note: how big of a prick must their father be? I can only imagine) and he racked up huge penalty totals across three years of juniors. He's their leading PIM guy this year, and the announcers in the above clip euphemistically call him State's "police/enforcer," by which they mean talentless thug. During the game it became clearer and clearer that Conboy was just looking for heads to add to the wall, but Comley kept throwing him out there. Down two goals with under ten minutes on the clock, Comley went to a guy with five points on the season.
Then Comley managed to impugn a couple of Michigan players' class for talking crap to him after all this in the postgame presser. You can say whatever you want about how nice a guy he is and what an ambassador for the game he is, but that's pathetic. That's someone in denial about what happened and his role in it.
As for Tropp: a two-handed slash to the head of a prone, motionless player should be cause for ejection from the team, expulsion from school, and criminal charges. I hope the Kampfer family presses charges, and I look forward to seeing Tropp's arrest for meth addiction in my local electronic newspaper in 15 years.
Update: MVictors has frame-by-frame stuff on the incident; Yost Built also has a right-on take. On review, the Tropp thing is even more unbelievable: you can watch him cock his stick, see Kampfer is prone on the ground, and then wait for a better shot.
Update II: Impartial Wisconsin fan and former UMD announcer Bruce Ciskie at Fanhouse:
Oh, and [Tropp] slashed a player who was probably unconscious at the time. There's a special place in hockey hell for people like that.
(HT: Ace of Sports.)
January 25th, 2009 at 7:01 PM ^
Maybe only some of the people who play lacrosse are pussies, but but I'm not wrong on the following counts:
It's not on skates.
The sticks aren't as long and they aren't as potentially dangerous as hockey sticks due to a variety of reasons related to shape and size.
There aren't boards.
The game, intrinsically, doesn't possess the same emphasis on physicality as hockey does.
Discussion of Lacrose is peripheral at best. I was simply pointing out that Enjoy Life's analogy is utter bullshit.
January 25th, 2009 at 8:35 PM ^
Big Gay Heart, you were the one that posted "a physical sport that is played with weapons. No other sport comes close to possessing this combination."
I repeat, you posted: "No other sport comes close to possessing this combination."
I gave you two examples that meet that criteria (coming close) by any definition. Your post that I was replying to did not even mention skates.
January 25th, 2009 at 9:31 PM ^
I feel like a dick participating in an extremely stupid digression, but:
1. Everywhere in the world other than the US, Field Hockey is a man's sport. I have never watched it, so I can't speak to the physicality.
2. Everything you say about lacrosse (sticks aren't as long (defense sticks are much, much longer), there are no boards (the most economically viable lacrosse league is indoors, with boards)) is plain evidence of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. This comes from someone who spend 16 years playing lacrosse ranging from junior high school to semi-professional.
January 25th, 2009 at 6:34 PM ^
Are you drunk tonight.
"Hockey is a physical sport that is played with weapons."
What?
LMAO
January 25th, 2009 at 6:49 PM ^
Well,I'm pretty sure that you an call a six foot long curved stick used for striking things very hard a weapon if used incorrectly - case in point, last night.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:07 PM ^
No, a hockey stick is a tool used to play hockey. It CAN be used as a weapon, but that does NOT mean it should be. Hell, a table can be used as a weapon. A garbage can could be used as a weapon. A doorknob could be used as a weapon. It doesn't mean they should be.
Hockey is a physical sport. It should NOT be violent. Violence implies recklessness with the intent to injure. I've played hockey, and you might have also. I'm sure tons of other people on here have too. You don't go hit someone to hurt them. You hit them to take them off the puck. That is physicality. That is an intrinsic part of hockey. When you start doing things with an intent to injure, that is violence. That deserves punishment, and with the severity of this case, serious punishment.
January 25th, 2009 at 7:09 PM ^
You're smarter than this. I'm not sure what your deal is tonight.
You can make just about anything into a weapon. You can kill someone with a freakin' spoon for goodness sake. Does that mean we eat our cereal with a "weapon"?
January 25th, 2009 at 7:47 PM ^
Hockey has animosity and scrums, we know this. Animosity and scrummage(?) are not what make this incident exceptional. What makes this exceptional are two (maybe 3) things: (1) The shots taken at Kampfer were cheap (2) Both cheap shots were to the head and neck (therefore, potentially career/life-ending) and (3) Kampfer's recent skull/backbone injury (though I, personally, would not argue this last point as every guy on the ice is subjecting himself to the same risks). This was no "fine line" that was crossed ... it was a fucking eight-lane highway.
We're not pissed at Spartina because she retaliated; because she lashed out like the sore loser we all know her to be. It was the manner of her so doing! Cowardly, dishonorable, shameful, disgraceful ... these characteristics of Conboy & Tropp's actions are deontological in nature. Excessive, potentially career-ending, potentially resulting in lifelong disability ... these are consequentialist in nature. So, the Michigan RAGE is well-rounded, valid, and justified from any rational perspective.
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