In the wake of Zdeno Chara's hit on Max Pacioretty, NHL sponsor Via Rail became the latest Canadian corporation to dump on the NHL for its inability, or refusal, to protect the heads of players. The railway company sent a condemning letter to the league on March 11, 2011.
Calling the failure to discipline Chara "ineffective and unacceptable," Yves Desjardins-Sicilliano, VIA's general counsel and secretary, addressed the letter to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. "VIA Rail is concerned, as are its customers, that the NHL seems unable to take appropriate measures to protect the physical integrity of its players," Desjardins-Sicilliano wrote.
Via Rail, Air Canada: Sponsors Condemn NHL
Air Canada had already written a strongly worded letter to the league condemning the violence of that hit and others. Tim Horton was another sponsor who expressed concern through a letter to the league. So far the league has not responded with contrition but in the case of Air Canada Bettman has said the league could find another carrier/sponsor should Air Canada's threat to pull its sponsorship take place.
Via Rail has sponsorship deals with Montreal and Ottawa. They said in their letter that they are hoping the NHL will take action to protect players but there was no public response to the letter from Gary Bettman or the NHL.
Hockey Teams Montreal and Pittsburgh Agree
Also on Friday David Morehouse, president of the Pittsburgh Penguins, David Morehouse, in an interview with the Canadian daily newspaper The Globe and Mail, agreed with Montreal Canadiens chairman and owner, Geoff Molson. Yesterday Molson released a strongly worded and extensive letter that was also condemning of the league's failure to find a way of disciplining head shots and protecting players.
Morehouse, whose team continues to be without superstar Sidney Crosby, took into account a player on his team, Matt Cooke, who bears some responsibility in the parade of head shots the league continues to produce; Cooke viciously laid out Marc Savard in the winter of 2010, a hit that may have ended the 33-year-old Savard's career.
“We’ve been on both sides of devastating and controversial hits to the head, and we believe that they should be eliminated from the game, period,” Morehouse told Globe reporters Sean Gordon and Les Perreaux. "If we’re going to have supplementary discipline it can’t just be a punitive tool, it has to be a legislative tool....we really have to take a hard look at it and try to make sure that teams are held accountable for the behaviour of their players, and that’s us included."
NHL's Bill Daly, Bettman, Fight Back
There has been a cascade of fan and media condemnation on radio sports talk shows, in newspapers, at water coolers in offices, from hockey institutions such as Hockey Quebec. There was even a statement from Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper that head shots are something the league is "going to have to address."
Despite this the NHL continues to defend their lack of action and the climate they have created on-ice. In addition to the Gary Bettman remarks on Air Canada's letter, NHL deputy commissioner wrote a letter to the Montreal french-language daily La Presse, saying in part that the league did not agree with the statements of Molson and the Montreal franchise.
Montreal Police Investigate NHL On-Ice Hit
Meanwhile, the Montreal police have opened an investigation into the Chara hit, Sidney Crosby shows no signs of coming back anytime soon, Marc Savard is done for the season and possibly for good and Willie Mitchell, in the wake of a devastating concussion from a check from behind last season, has told media that he'll be willing his brain for science to study.
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