Dear Bruce Boudreau

Dear Mr.Doughboy Boudreau,

This is to inform you that you are what's wrong with the NHL. This, of course, will be a shocking revelation for you, but you really need to know.

Last week, as you're certainly aware, Max Pacioretty sustained a severe concussion and a broken neck after Zdeno Chara took temporary leave of his senses and drilled him into the stanchion between the benches, head first. This devastating hit turned many people's stomachs, and turned lifelong fans away from the game in disgust. It made them ask when it was that killing blows to the head became "part of the game?"

Not you, though, Mr.Fudd Boudreau. Oh no. You thought the fans' reaction was funny. You blithely told fans who don't enjoy the suspense involved in wondering whether a player is dead or alive that if they don't like it, they should go home.

Well, Mr.Gerber Baby Boudreau, you should be aware that the fans you're telling to go home are the reason you have a nice, cushy job. The fans pay Alex Ovechkin's salary, and, if not for him, you'd be back riding the buses. And the fans pay your wages too. How quickly you forget what life in the minors was like, and how easily you dismiss the genuine anger of the people on whom your lifestyle depends.

Worse than that, you laugh at their legitimate outrage and call it partisan. You know what, Mr.Alfred Hitchock Boudreau? Most right-thinking human beings, hockey fans or not, would have been just as sickened if Hal Gill destroyed David Krejci's health as they were after the hit on Pacioretty. That you can so cavalierly belittle that outrage and imply that people other than Canadiens fans enjoyed seeing that hit is insulting to the sensitivity of most hockey fans.

People like you, who, from your comfortable perch behind your safe bench, continue to insist this kind of devastation inflicted on the long-term well-being of young players is a "normal" part of the game prove how outdated your understanding really is. After all, it's not your brain getting smashed into pulp, is it?

The sad part of it all is, you're in the majority. The more enlightened "hockey people" like Ray Shero and Pierre Gauthier, who want to see changes to protect players' brains, get shouted down by the traditionalists who are perfectly happy to let things go along as they are. The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality is fundamentally flawed because people like you don't understand that it is broke.

Here's a question for you, Mr.Bunsen Honeydew Boudreau: Would you still be laughing if that hit had been by Hal Gill on your meal ticket Ovechkin? I bet that wouldn't have been a hockey play, would it? Next time, stop and think before you open your gaping pie hole. Or just stuff it with pie. Either way, it would be beneficial to the game if you were to just keep your Neanderthal opinions to yourself.

Sincerely,

J.T.