Colby’s hits are all clean

Player Profile: Colby Armstrong Height: 6-foot-2 Weight: 190 pounds Position: Right Wing Job… Player Profile: Colby Armstrong Height: 6-foot-2 Weight: 190 pounds Position: Right Wing Job Description: Headhunter for the Pittsburgh Penguins

While some may knock the play of Colby Armstrong, I for one am an avid fan. As a strong, go-to-the-net type of player, he makes solid decisions in his own end and in the opponents’ zone.

People around the league are complaining about the types of hits he throws, but I believe that these are the hits that have made hockey the great game that the fans have come to love over the past 100 years.

People are calling these hits the black eye of hockey. However, they are clean hits that were the victims’ fault.

If a player gets hit cleanly and gets hurt as a result of his own mistake, then there should be no penalty or even fuss made about Armstrong or anyone else who threw the hit.

Whether the opposing player skates with his head down (a big no-no in hockey) or watches his pass (just as bad), he has a right to get laid out cleanly by the hitter. It’s his dumb fault for making these amateur mistakes.

Armstrong has thrown four pretty significant types of these bone-crushing bombs this season, but none of them have warranted penalties from the league officials for one simple reason – they’re legal.

The first occurred on Oct. 14, 2006, against the Carolina Hurricanes. Trevor Letowski, a seven-year NHL veteran and forward for the Hurricanes, had just attempted to make a pass from the top of the circles in the Penguins’ zone.

Letowski was watching his pass as the Pittsburgh defense broke up the play when Armstrong struck. He hit the Carolina forward from his blind side with a shoulder check.

The hit, which was deemed legal by league officials, knocked Letowski unconscious. But Letowski would have been able to brace himself for the hit had he not watched his pass.

The Hurricanes won that game, 5-1, but Armstrong won that battle. He did his job of hitting the man after he released his pass. Was it his fault that Letowski didn’t follow a fundamental teaching?

No. Letowski needed to take personal responsibility for the area around him. He needed to be aware of his surroundings, which he wasn’t, and thus was punished with a great, clean hit.

The second of these bruising hits by Armstrong came on Jan. 13, 2007, in the Penguins’ 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Flyers.

On Armstrong’s shift, he was crushed on the left wing boards by Flyers defenseman Alexandre Picard. The Pens player picked himself up and kept on chugging.

He followed the play back into his own zone where Flyers forward Jeff Carter was gliding behind the Pittsburgh net with the puck.

Armstrong lined up Carter from the side boards and “reaped” him, according to an NBC play-by-play announcer Doc Emerick. Carter, like Letowski, should have been aware of where he was and where his opponents were on the ice.

The Penguin forward did not charge him, which is taking more than three strides before making contact, but he did hit a player who was keeping his head down while looking at the puck.

Had Carter’s head been up and looking at the ice surface in front of him, he would not have been sent flying into the boards by Armstrong. It was another clean hit by Colby.

A third of these blistering shots by Armstrong occurred not three weeks later in the Penguins’ 5-4 win over the Montreal Canadiens.

Montreal forward Saku Koivu was skating behind the Penguins’ net while reaching behind himself with one hand for the puck.

With Koivu’s eyes focused on the ice behind him, Armstrong crushed him with a clean shoulder on shoulder hit. Koivu subsequently went flying high into the boards behind Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.

Koivu, as was the case with the two previously mentioned players, had his eyes away from the play in front of him, which made him susceptible to being laid out.

The most recent attack from Armstrong’s arsenal came Sunday night in Pittsburgh as the Pens played, and lost, to the Ottawa Senators in Game 3 of their Eastern Conference playoff series.

Senators forward Patrick Eaves was skating with his head down. Seems to be a recurring theme, huh?

He made his way around the Penguin net when Armstrong clipped him with his shoulder. Armstrong came down from the right-wing point and made contact.

Eaves was carried off the ice by a stretcher, but that would not have happened if Eaves would have had his head up.

A basic concept in all of the plays mentioned was that the opposing player was not aware of his surroundings and did not have his eyes on the play around him.

While some see fault in Armstrong’s play, I support it whole-heartedly and hope that he continues to play this type of game as long I can watch him skate.