Boston Bruins: Everyone Should Absorb the Wise Words of Andrew Ference

Hockey is so complex that the collective complexities of the game are quite simple. And if there is any prerequisite to being a suitable competitor and a suitable member of the small, yet dense hockey world, it is a delicate sort of balance.

To pursue, let alone achieve success, teams need their lineup cards to be crafted in a way that balances skill, toughness, finesse and work ethic. The four humors of ancient-to-medieval medicine may be long debunked, but the four humors of hockey are more time-tested than any of the NHL rule book’s contents.

Likewise, while different components of a team may have a little more or a little less of each essential trait, all individual players much exhibit a certain balance of their own. That, most naturally, is a balance between competitive grudging and extramural sensitivity.

Leave it up to well-spoken Boston Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference to restate the importance of keeping that balance so soon after the ice chips have settled from a spirited Stanley Cup Finals rematch with the Vancouver Canucks.

As Ference told the Bruins website Sunday morning: “You can respect and despise people at the same time. You respect every team you play to a degree because it’s an NHL team and they’re battling and you’re playing a pretty tough sport – you have a certain amount of respect for everybody.”

That crisply delivered statement emits a solid balance (there’s that word again) of simplicity and profundity. It offers a shot in the arm for an important notion that is sometimes lost on certain bystanders and even, on the surface, a few participants.

A contest like Saturday’s makes Ference’s lesson especially prone to disappearance.

The penalty-filled, 4-3 Vancouver victory at TD Garden proved that the previously unheard-of animosity between these geographically distant franchises does, in fact, have a shelf life longer than seven months. Some of the in-game occurrences have left no doubt that the teams, and especially their respective fanbases, are not shy about sprinkling fresh spices into the broth of bitterness.

Boston buffs did not let Canucks coach Alain Vigneault’s decision to start Cory Schneider―a move that could pay long-term dividends if Schneider continues to backbone victories against fellow bigwigs―deter them from heckling Roberto Luongo.

It is, in fairness, hard to expect Luongo to be overlooked after last spring, when he made his bed out of premature slights against counterpart Tim Thomas, then failed to put the Bruins to rest in back-to-back elimination games.

On the other end, even in victory, Vancouver fans are outraged over the NHL’s decision to rescind Milan Lucic’s game misconduct for joining a comprehensive altercation in Saturday’s first period.

The Canucks crowd is now holding out hope for a little justice in the wake of Bruins forward Brad Marchand’s injurious hit on defenseman Sami Salo. That hit will render the latter out of commission for at least one game and will have Marchand speaking with NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan on Monday morning.

That particular incident from late in the second period even sparked a momentary war of words. Boston coach Claude Julien, on the one hand, implicitly defended Marchand’s approach to his collision with Salo and, in turn, drew the ire of Vigneault.

Given the recent disciplinary history of the individual and team in question, it will only be logical if Marchand is ruled ineligible for the next game or two. That will hopefully send the right message to the Bruins, who already paid a stiff price in the absence of Marchand and Lucic upon allowing all four Vancouver goals on a power play.

In addition, one needs to hope that Vigneault was merely speaking in the heat of the moment when he delivered frightful remarks that, in reference to Marchand, “Someday, someone’s going to say ‘enough is enough’ and they’re going to hurt the kid because he plays to hurt players.”

Oh, terrific—Hammurabi's code. That’s even more outdated than, well, the four humors of medicine.

But in case Vigneault really meant what he said and if anyone with any power shares his opinion, they and their entire populace of NHL frenemies would be best served to hear more of Ference’s words:

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“I don’t think there’s any teams we go out there (and) hold hands with. There’s a respect, but you just can’t say we have no respect for them, because that’s a false statement. But when you have competitive people, you’re going to butt heads and have tough games, but it’s not for a lack of respect.”

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Conversely, foretelling an eye-for-eye cheap shot—let alone following through on one’s words through actions—shows nothing but a lack of respect. It disrespects one’s opponent, one’s personal image, the crest of one’s team and the image of the sport.

Fortunately, Ference was apt to speak more rationally so soon after this contest, as he has done in the past. Ference is somebody who has all of his hockey humors in control and maintains a reasonably level head when things boil over.

Consider what happened 11 months ago, when the seasoned stay-at-home defenseman engaged in the last of four first-period fights between the Bruins and Dallas Stars. He did not divert his attention from the game at hand in search of fisticuffs, but spontaneously showed Dallas forward Adam Burish what happens when you knowingly fire a slap shot after the whistle.

In the same game, teammate Daniel Paille was ejected for elbowing Dallas’ Raymond Sawada in the head, an offense that warranted a four-game suspension. None other than Ference rightly thought back to his own team’s recent history of receiving objectionable hits and said, “You can’t be hypocritical about it when it happens to you and say it’s fine when your teammate does it.”

The blindly bellicose Don Cherry and Mike Milbury may have resented that particular statement and they may not even have a problem with Vigneault’s dangerous remarks, but Ference was right then and he is right now to keep a firm grip on a reasonable degree of sportsmanship.

The last thing the NHL needs, for everyone’s sake, is to lose sight of one of the most fundamental grassroots principles of athletic competition.

Hate the opposing crest, colors and logo. Desire and work unconditionally to chalk up more goals than the other team. But never forget the game’s first commandment to respect the human inside the opposing garb.