JIM LANG ON SPORTS!

BYLINE: JIM LANG
FOR RODPEDERSEN.COM

• NHL

Friday is going to be a bad day for Boston Bruins forward Shawn Thornton. By now everyone has likely seen the highlights of Thornton’s MMA style attack against the Penguins Brooks Orpik.

The severity of the incident resulted in the dreaded “in-person” hearing for Thornton at the NHL’s head offices in Manhattan.

That is bad news for Thornton as that means he is about to be suspended for a long time. Even though Thornton showed a great deal of remorse and was quoted as saying “I can’t say sorry enough” afterwards, little of that matters now. Thornton crossed a line that not even old school NHL people could forgive.

The question now is just how long will Thornton be suspended? It is sure to be longer than 10 games and it wouldn’t be a shock to see him hammered with a 20 game suspension.

I have no problem with fighting in hockey. But I do have an issue with the kind of thing Thornton did to Orpik.

I have dealt with Thornton numerous times in my career. Both on the record in interviews and off the record as the two of us were just talking. I have always like him and always found him to be a real solid human being. That’s why it was so shocking to see what he did to Orpik.

What Thornton did to Orpik was bad, what James Neal did to Brad Marchand was not much better.

Neal tried to make it look like he was just skating back to the bench as he kneed Marchand in the head. So if Neal got five games for that move Thornton is sure to get more than 10 for his stunt with Orpik.

For those fans that don’t understand why players would do these kinds of thing to one another you have to understand that emotions run high in the middle of a hockey game.

Between adrenalin and competitive fire seemingly good natured athletes are capable of some awful things during the course of a game. That is why the NHL will never be able to get of these kinds of incidents because you can’t legislate emotion out of the sport.

• GARY BETTMAN

Well that didn’t take long. During the NHL Board of Governors meetings Commissioner Gary Bettman proudly announced that the projected salary cap for next season is around $71 million dollars.

I realize a lot of hockey fans do not like Bettman. I know for a fact that a lot of players hate the man.

But despite all of this Bettman has managed to make players in the NHL very wealthy. Even for the players that don’t last long the minimum salary in the NHL is up to $525,000 dollars. By the 2020/2021 season that figure will rise to $750,000 dollars.

In the 1994/95 season the league minimum was $125,000 dollars.

So not only are the top end stars in the NHL making more money under Bettman, so are the fringe players making the league minimum.

I am still of the belief that the NHL needs more of a hockey man in the league office to balance out all of the lawyers and accountants. But there is no denying the financial gains the league has enjoyed under Bettman.

• NFL

The NFL’s obsession with trying to do away with any and all headshots have resulted in yet another serious knee injury. During the Patriots win over the Browns we saw a painful example in the new dangers facing NFL receivers and tight ends. Browns safety T.J. Ward went low to hit Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski.

It was a play that resulted in a serious knee injury for Gronk.  According to Trey Wingo of ESPN (@wingoz) Gronkowski’s knee injury was the 40th ACL in the NFL this season. There were 32 ACL injuries all of last season. So now the Patriots won’t have Gronk for the rest of the season. Expect more serious knee injuries like Gronk’s before the end of the year. Players have received the message loud and clear from Roger Goodell; the head is off limits.

When speaking to reporters afterwards Ward explained why he hit Gronk so low. “If I were to hit him up high, there’s a chance I would be fined, so I was just being safe.”

This is the mentality of defensive players around the league now; ‘Go ahead and take out a guy at the knees, but just don’t hit him in the head.’

Dan Wiederer (@danwiederer) sent out a Tweet earlier this week stating that the combined record of 2012 NFC Playoff teams was 35-41-2. Take out the NFC West big dogs (49ers and Seahawks) and its 15-35-2.

This is a great illustration of just how hard it is to have sustained success in the NFL. Two prime examples are the Atlanta Falcons and the Houston Texans.

The Falcons and the Texans were a combined 25-7 in 2012. This year they are a combined 5-21 and both teams were supposed to be Super Bowl contenders in 2013.

At the same time the Patriots will go into week 15 with 10 wins. That means since 2003 the Patriots have put together 11 straight seasons with 10 or more wins. In this modern era of pro sports where sustaining excellence for any length of time is next to impossible what Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have put together in New England is remarkable. Playoff teams come and go in the AFC but the Patriots are always one of the elite teams in the Conference.

Week 15 will kick off Thursday night in Denver as the Broncos host the Chargers. A win be Denver and a loss by the Chiefs to the Panthers on Sunday and the Broncos will clinch the AFC West title.

• THE STEELERS NATION

Over the years I had heard many stories about what it was like to see at Steelers game at Heinz Field. My oldest daughter is a huge Steelers fan so for her birthday we got tickets and took her to this past Sunday’s game against the Dolphins. While the weather was nasty the game day experience and the fans around us were anything but. Seeing a game a Heinz Field is something all football fans should experience at least once. While the fans are intense about their Steelers I never once felt worried at all about the safety of my kids.

(Follow Jim on Twitter at @JimLangSports)