Thread:
1. For full disclosure. I love Canada. Have family there. Lost count on how many times I have been there since my first visit 1973. All in all, with or without hockey, Canada is one of the best countries in the world. Best bagels, best smoked meat. >

2. Love Canadian hockey too, ever since I saw the 1968 Canadian Olympic team, despite that Ken Broderick, Fran Huck & boys got whipped 5-0 by the Soviets. >

3. I did cartwheels (well…) when Henderson scored the goal. I screamed alone in the middle of the night in Gothenburg, Sweden when Sittler scored in the 1976 Canada Cup OT. >

4. I took abuse from class mates in my Swedish school after that the 1972 Team Canada made fools of themselves in Stockholm before going to Moscow. “How can you like these goons?” they yelled. >

5. I took even more abuse in school when Wilf Paiement and others disgraced the country at the 1977 Worlds by running amok, when Canada staged a “glorious” comeback in international hockey. >

6. I broke several written and unwritten press-box rules when Sakic scored in Salt Lake 2002 to give Canada their first Olympic gold in 50 years. >

7. When I arrive at Pearson or Dorval I always have the feeling “this is my second home”. >

8. Which brings me to last night’s game when a “good Canadian kid from Scarborough” – who has 77 NHL-fights on his CV – felt that he needed to administer vigilante justice against an opponent who had never fought. >

9. So despite that the opposing player had just served a two-game suspension for an earlier infraction, and thus had paid the price, it was not enough according to “the Code”. More abuse had to be delivered against someone who has never fought. >

10. The coach of the abuser called the beating “the fabric of our game” and gave “credit” to the abuser “for stepping up”. It also “set a good tone for the game” and finally, giving “credit” to the guy who had never fought before for “participating”.

11. And basically, no one reacts. And this is something I will probably never understand and about Canada and its approach to hockey despite that I have devoted my life trying to understand this. >

12. How can distinguished citizens of a country which is universally admired for its humbleness, noble values, moral virtues and international peacekeeping regress to Neanderthals when dealing with the sport of hockey? >

13. How can a country that has produced Orr, Beliveau, Gretzky, Lemieux and McDavid, and whose national team can play electrifyingly skilled hockey in the Olympics, World Cups and World Juniors still feel that punching someone’s face represents “the fabric of our game”? >

14. If this is truly “the fabric of the game” why don’t Canadian national teams bring this “code” to international hockey nowadays to “set a good tone for the games”? Or are there many fabrics, one domestic and one international?