In Defence of Matt Cooke

After Matt Cooke took Marc Savard out for the remainder of the season with a questionable hit the other night, there was a lot of talk amongst fans and the media as to how many games he would be suspended...

It seems like nobody is on this guy's side except for Colin Campbell...

Heck, his own teammate Bill Guerin spoke out against what he did, so he could probably use a friend...

But I'm here to even out those odds, even if it is just by a minuscule fraction...

Wait, no I'm not...

I hate that guy...

Let me back up a little...

When Matt Cooke played for the Canucks, as my brother and I were watching the games I'd often comment on how dirty this guy was, and how he always seems to be going for the player and not the puck, and usually in ways that weren't exactly above board...

I mean, I love a grinder as much as the next guy, but this guy wasn't just going hard into the corners for the puck, he was leading with his elbows...

And he wasn't just trying to poke at the puck when somebody was skating towards him, he was also sticking out his knees...

People talk about how cheap players like Sean Avery and Jarko Ruutu are, but at least their intentions are blatantly obvious and it usually revolves around pissing off the other team's guys enough to draw a penalty...

The whole time I've watched games when Matt Cooke was on the ice, all I've seen is him trying to intentionally take players out of the game...

This isn't the first time he's dropped his shoulder to hit an opposing player in the head, and it sure as hell won't be the last. Especially since he didn't even get a slap on the wrist for taking a star player out of the game for the rest of the season...

Colin Campbell said that a precedent had been set when Mike Richards wasn't penalized for a similar hit earlier in the season, but there is a big difference between Richards and Cooke. Mike Richards may play with a little bit of an edge, but its not like he's a fourth line player on the ice just to shut the other team's offence down one way or the other...

I know that there are always guys you say that you hate to play against, but would love to have on your team. Corey Perry and Jarko Ruutu are two names that come to mind when I think of that kind of statement. They play with an edge and can get under the skin of the other teams...

But nobody should ever be saying that about Matt Cooke, and it looks like even Bill Guerin believes this. I've been watching Matt Cooke for a long time and I've never seen anything that could be called a redeeming quality in this guy's game. Even his goals are cheap...

I just can't believe the East coast bias is so bad in sports that it took him moving to Washington and Pittsburgh before the rest of the NHL's fans finally realized how much of a stain this guy leaves behind...

Make sure you find a place to watch the Penguins - Bruins game next Thursday, if Cooke is man enough to step up for what he did...