The two faces of Pen's Hack Matt Cooke

For some reason the Globe and Mail from Toronto wants to remake the image of Matt Cooke the player. I could care less if Matt Cooke donated some hockey equipment to a junior team in Canada. As a Boston Bruins fan I am still disgusted that Matt Cooke got away "scott-free" with dirty hit on Marc Savard where Cooke tried to dislodge Savard's head from the rest of his body.

Globe and Mail --- Matt Cooke is spending part of his days as a suspended NHL player in front of a video screen, with Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma or one of his assistants, Tony Granato or Todd Reirden.

There, Cooke sits and watches the dirty hits that brought the outrage of the hockey world down on him last month.

The idea, Penguins general manager Ray Shero said, is to bring back a changed man when Cooke returns from his latest suspension that covered the final 10 games of the regular season and the first round of the playoffs. Pittsburgh leads the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first-round series three games to one, with a chance to close it out Saturday (CBC, noon ET). If the Pens advance, he could be back in action as early as next week.

“The coaches say [to Cooke] you have to be careful with this, be more conscious of this,” Shero said. “I think he wants to change the way things happen for him.”

Shortly after NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell announced the fifth suspension of Cooke's career for a hit to the head of New York Rangers defenceman Ryan McDonagh on March 20, Cooke said, “I realize and understand more so now than ever that I need to change.”

The million-dollar question is, can he change? Is the 32-year-old forward afflicted with an internal trigger that sets off uncontrollable, violent behaviour? Or is his intimidating, injurious style of play really a cold, contrived strategy designed to keep him playing in the NHL as long as possible?

Color me skeptical and while you can’t see me, please note that I am rolling my eyes… I don’t see how a player that has played the game the way Matt Cooke does for so long is now somehow going to change the way he plays and now we are to believe that Cooke is a reformed player that is going to play the game within the confines of the rules. Yeah; and I have some beach front property in Florida that I would like to sell you, real cheap too. I will believe it when I see it. I think the next time this ruffian (or insert your own adjective_________ to describe Matt Cooke) screws up the NHL should really throw the book at him. I am all for bone crushing checks and good fights between heavy weights but the stuff Cooke doesn’t isn’t good hockey.

Uber Hack Matt Cooke is up to his old tricks.

Whenever I read Mario Lemieux’s comments about the league protecting it’s players I have to wonder if Mario is oblivious to the fact that on roster of the team he owns is one of the dirtiest and most despised players currently playing in the NHL. It seems like almost every week we are talking about “uber douche” Matt Cooke and his on ice transgressions. It’s time for the NHL to suspend this worthless P.O.S. before he kills someone or paralyzes someone for life, enough is enough.

“We, as a league, must do a better job of protecting the integrity of the game and the safety of our players. We must make it clear that those kinds of actions will not be tolerated and will be met with meaningful disciplinary action.

“If the events relating to Friday night reflect the state of the league, I need to re-think whether I want to be a part of it.”

Today we have Matt Cooke driving his elbow into Ryan McDonagh’s head. Seriously! There is no excuse for that play, there is no reason that Matt Cooke should play again during the regular season, I also believe that Matt Cooke should be suspended for the first round of the playoffs for this latest escapade. I also believe that Ken Daneyko is right when he says “that the NHL [should declare] open season for one week on Matt Cooke. You won't get suspended. Then we'll see if he'll continue [his behavior] for the rest of the season or his career." Also, if Mario had any cojones he would suspend Matt Cooke for the rest of the year to send a message that he is serious about player safety, if not he has egg on his face.

More to Cooke than meets the skull

National Post Picture

Wow! I can’t believe a major Canadian Newspaper would try to paint Matt Cooke in a positive light. The fact remains he is one of the dirtiest and most hated players in the NHL. It’s hard to get to that level. No matter how the National Post tries to portray Matt Cooke, he is a major P.O.S. and one of the dirtiest hockey players that I have ever witnessed play the game during my lifetime.

National Post ---- One of the National Hockey League’s greatest villains finds peace in a garage near the water east of Toronto. Matt Cooke has stocked it with the essential tools, sanders and saws among them, while eschewing any of the chatter that might remind him of what he does during the winter to earn his summer retreat.

“The crash of the waves is my radio,” he said.

Cooke collects antiques. His prized find is a pine cabinet, six feet long and seven feet tall, that he refinished himself after stripping off several layers of paint. There was pink, baby blue, green, white and grey.

“You could tell it came through different eras, where that colour was ‘in’ at the time,” he said. “It wasn’t the easiest thing to get back to wood, but I managed to do it.”

The cabinet is still standing, eight years after its rebirth, in the kitchen of his cottage near Belleville, Ont. It is a testament to the constructive skills of a man with legions of critics screaming about his destructive behaviour, most recently and notoriously with the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Highlight reels have been dedicated solely to his apparent willingness to abandon almost all sense of human morality on the ice. Don Cherry railed against Cooke in one segment of Hockey Night in Canada last year, an animated dissertation on Cooke’s decade-long hit parade that ended with a prediction — correct, as it turned out — that without adequate protection, such violence would eventually find Penguins captain Sidney Crosby.

The catalyst for Cherry’s rant was Cooke’s (unpunished) headshot on Marc Savard. The Boston Bruins forward had just released a shot on goal when Cooke slammed a shoulder into his right temple, sending him to the ice with a severe concussion and, ultimately, toward the prospect of an early retirement.

Cooke vs Richards

I don't get to watch a lot of NHL hockey on the weekend when UND is playing and I wanted to post this so you could take a look. I have to say that Mike Richards from the Flyers just went up in my estimation and I hold Matt Cooke in the same regard as I do Ulfie Samuelson lower than pond scum.

Jarkko Ruutu thumps uber hack Matt Cooke

Not that I am fan of Jarkko Ruutu (this is the same clown that bit Andrew Peters) but it was nice to see Matt Cooke getting more of what he deserves. I would like to give Ruutu a medal for him punching one of the biggest hacks in the NHL and that is saying a lot because there are many of them.