Cody McLeod (AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post)
In the final seconds of Colorado’s 3-1 loss to Minnesota last night, Avalanche winger stirred it up, jostling with Mikael Granlund and ending up fighting with Charlie Coyle. He drew an unsportsmanlike conduct, fighting major and a 10-minute misconduct. I already had filed my “running” story and was on the way down to the dressing room at the time and caught the end of the milling around from the ice-level portal, so I’m not going to claim to have seen or watched all of it from beginning to end.
The link above is to my recent feature on McLeod. I like him a lot and respect his blue-collar work ethic. But what happened there was another example of what I referred to as “suspect” aspects of his game and his rationale for fighting, though the Avalanche point of view — unspoken perhaps — is that it was a “standing up” response (an indirect one) to the Sean Bergenheim hit on Nathan MacKinnon in the middle of the third period that left the Avalanche teenager with an apparent broken nose. The game was over, no point was made, and it just added to, rather than mitigated, the Avalanche embarrassment.
For the record, McLeod has been on the second and third lines of late, so it was not a reach to have him on the ice. I think it’s safe to say that any message sent to McLeod — and I’m not saying there was one — was implicit rather than direct. In these situations, it’s usually about inferences drawn rather than instructions issued. And, yes, part of this could be and should be attempting to prevent those inferences being drawn. It’s not about succumbing meekly and slinking off with tails between legs. It’s not about accountability. It’s about not summoning the most bush league aspects of “The Code.”
But here’s the problem with some of the outrage over this.
One of the sport’s plagues is the farcical, 180-degree phenomenon in the reactions. It’s comical to behold sometimes. If he’s “your” guy — and by that I mean from the perspective of teams, fans and even members of the media who get caught up in the emotionalism — he’s doing his job and hey, if things happen, this ain’t a ballet. If he’s “their” guy, he’s despicable. I’m not getting caught up in the emotionalism, I believe, to point out that the Wild storyline seems to be that Matt Cooke — now injured — is a reformed, gritty team guy. Or that if you completely flip this around and it happened at the end of a game in St. Paul, much of the reactions would be exact polar opposites. From fans, from media, for all involved.
In many, many years of covering hockey at the NHL and major junior levels, I’ve regaled readers with my views about the absurdities involved in The Code, most notably in the Steve Moore/Todd Bertuzzi narrative (in which Cooke played a role). At this point, in my temporary return to hockey, I’m not going to bother with getting into it too much again. I will say this again, though: One reason I’m not going to bother with a full-scale argument is that I can rattle off both sides in the discussion — especially about the role of fighting in the game — after hearing (and making) them 1,263,345 times and realizing that it’s like other hot button issues in life. Nobody ever changes his or her mind and it all becomes scripted cliches flying back and forth rather than genuine discussion and perhaps adjustments in positions after thoughtful consideration. Much of the back and forth in the wake of the Bertuzzi/Moore mess was numbingly mindless stupidity, though the most telling and thoughtful examinations of the Code aspects came in Canada, including in a Macleans cover story.
But I will add this: What Cody McLeod did last night at the end of the game was, to me, as much a stupid outgrowth of the North American game’s code and culture as it was a single despicable act. I’d ask anyone expressing outrage: Flip it 180 degrees or put the skate on the other foot … however you want to put it. How would you react?
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/TFrei
