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Sam Bennet, Paul Maurice, and the Collapse of Western Civilization [1]

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Date: 2025-05-08

Perhaps the title is a wee bit hyperbolic, but this entire incident has irritated and depressed me. For those who are not hockey fans, or for those hockey fans who checked out after their favorite team was eliminated (which I could do but then I would never get to watch good hockey) from the playoffs, I am referring to a hit leveled by the Florida Panther’s Sam Bennet on Toronto Maple Leaf goalie Anthony Stolarz. It was by no means the worst hit I have ever seen, but it was clearly an elbow to the head and Stolarz, after staying in the game for a few moments, went to the bench, threw up, and had to be taken to the hospital. What bothers me is the reaction of Paul Maurice, the Florida coach, and how far from decency we seem to have drifted.

Maurice spent the day after the hit trying to downplay the hit. He mocked commentators who brought up Bennet’s history of cheap, reckless and/or dirty hits, saying “Honest to god, I’ve seen every hit that Sam Bennett’s thrown since he was 12 years old on TV this morning.” He then completely dismissed the problem, saying “I understand (the outcry). Like, call the fire department, put your hair out and let’s move on please.” And believe me, this excerpt does not convey the full contempt Maurice had for anyone who questioned the idea that Bennet should get away scot-free for his actions. To me, it is a disturbing sign of how badly our culture is warped.

Maurice clearly, clearly sees his only responsibility is to his own team. He clearly believes that he needs to win to fulfill his obligations to his players and his organization. And that is not entirely wrong. He is a coach, and he is paid, quite well, to do what he did last year — coach a team to the Stanley Cup. In theory, anything less than a full-throated defense of the indefensible actions of one of his best players decreases the odds of a championship. Losing Bennet for a game or two makes it less likely they will win the games he is out, and he might anger the locker room, making it less likely the team performs well. From that perspective, his actions may seem defensible. But they are actually a sign of pretty much everything wrong with the US.

Maurice should feel an obligation to all the players in the game. CTE, a brain injury that comes from repeated trauma to the head, is a real, deadly issue for hockey players. A certain amount of hits to the head is probably unavoidable. But players, coaches, and league officials (we will get to them in a little bit) should feel an obligation to the league as a whole, not to just their piece of it. Maurice didn’t necessarily need to say “Yep, he hit in the head, either intentionally or out of sloppiness, and he should expect a suspension.” He could have left it with a “We will have to see if the League office thinks that is a suspend-able hit, but obviously Sam feels bad about his actions”. He didn’t need to aggressively defend a hit to the head, a play that could seriously harm another player. That his actions are acceptable, that Maurice feels no repercussions for his defense of Bennet, is a clear message to others that they do not have to care about the NHL as a whole, or people not on their team. It’s fine to hurt players, to possibly contribute to a long-term injury that might destroy a man’s mind, if it gives you a slight edge in the next game.

It makes me ashamed to be a fan.

The NHL’s department of player safety’s actions do not help, either. They are wildly inconsistent when it comes to handing out punishments for plays missed by the referees, as this one was. There is a conspiracy theory floating that since the son of the head of player safety works for the Panthers, of course no punishment was going to come down. I do not believe the conspiracy theory — I cannot stress to you just how terrible Player Safety is as a general rule — but the fact that such an obvious conflict of interest is allowed is another example of how poorly our society works. People can claim that the father recuses himself, but he is still the head of the department. How can anyone believe that his employees will be perfectly fair in this instance? The man still employs them after the decision has been made. If the son wanted a job in the league, then his father should have been forced to resign or moved away for anything team facing. Basic common decency would tell you that, but we don’t live in a world with basic common decency.

I have written about this before, but American society is uniquely suited to encouraging terrible behavior. First, we have had fifty years, almost, of propaganda that tells people that their only loyalty is to the business that employs them. The shareholder value theory of business responsibility, for all the attempts to dress it up as good for society, is a simple, sociopathic plea for legally enforcing the self-centeredness of a specific class of people. American society also has no bottom. If you fall, you fall all the way into destitution and possibly death. Is it any wonder that people look out for themselves and their children above any other considerations? With decades of bad law and bad philosophy telling people it is all right to never consider anything beyond their own needs, and with no safety net to catch people brave enough to do the right things in the face of that pressure, who can blame people for doing the wrong thing?

We need to stop this. We need to remove the shareholder value from its legal perch. We need to start emphasizing that you have a web of responsibilities to society, not just to you and yours. And we need to create a safety net that is there for everyone, so that when people are punished for doing the right thing, they don’t fall all the way out of society. Otherwise, our future will be an elbow to the head. Forever.

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