It was announced during the 2010-2011 playoffs, that starting during the Stanley Cup Finals last season, that Brendan Shanahan would take over as the National Hockey League's Vice President of Hockey and Business Development and Head Disciplinarian. Everyone hoped that Shanny would bring constancy and transparency to the disciplining of the NHL players. Boy, has he made a difference already.
In one week of preseason action, there were seven suspensions. Most of these suspensions were from either hits to the head, or boarding. Shanahan has made a video of him introducing himself (see video below), and showing a clip of the incident. He then goes on the show you exactly in the video where the hit occurs, and what parts of the hit are key. He then goes on to explain why that hit was an illegal hit and reads right from the section of the rules where it bans such incidents.
If Shanahan continues to do this down the road, I think it will take away a lot of the "heat" that comes with this job. By showing in his videos, WHAT he is suspending this player for, and telling us about what incidents such player has done in the past, he is completely justifying his suspension and hiding behind nothing.
Not that I am looking or hoping for something like the Chara hit to happen again in the future, but it will be interesting to see what his ruling would have been on such a controversial hit.
I like Shanahan in this position. He is someone who was such a great player during his time in the NHL. He is the typical power forward, netting tons of points, while piling up a lot of penalty minutes, but not being known as a dirty player in the least.
Keep up the good work Shanny!
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