Ducks, Dallas Resume Their Increasingly Nasty Rivalry With Modano-Salei Incident Fresh on Minds of Players

The Mighty Thugs of Anaheim versus the Big Mouths from Big D. No holds barred. Loser leaves town. Blood will flow tonight at the Arrowhead Pond. Be there. Or miss this epic brawl.

Sheesh, is this any way to promote hockey?

Pro wrestling, sure. But hockey, the sport of the ‘90s?

Apparently.

“The term ‘grudge match’ has been in the dictionary for centuries,” said Bill Clement, a respected hockey analyst for ESPN who played with the Philadelphia Flyers’ notorious “Broad Street Bullies” teams of the 1970s. “The sport is warlike. It’s an eye for an eye. Paybacks and revenge are as old as the sport itself.”

However, Clement is quick to add that two wrongs don’t make a right.

“What’s changed is the disrespect players have for each other,” he said.

Rest assured, there will be no love lost when the Ducks host the Dallas Stars at 6:30 tonight at the Pond. It’s merely the latest in a series of high-profile “hate” games involving Western Conference teams in recent seasons.

Visions of Dallas center Mike Modano’s headfirst crash Saturday into the end boards after Duck defenseman Ruslan Salei’s shove in the back remain vivid. So do the angry words of Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock, who vowed revenge.

“We take care of our own,” Hitchcock said after Modano suffered a concussion, a broken nose and a strained neck.

Salei was suspended for 10 games by the NHL for his hit on Modano. Defenseman Pascal Trepanier and left wing Jim McKenzie also were suspended for five and four games, respectively, for rough play in that game.

The suspensions aren’t enough to satisfy Hitchcock, prompting Pierre Gauthier, Duck president and general manager, to say:

“I’ve never been involved in anything like this. I’ve always had the privilege to work with classy coaches. Craig [Hartsburg, Duck coach] and Jacques Martin [coach of the Ottawa Senators] never get involved in that kind of thing. Ron Wilson is a very vocal guy, but he’s got class.”

Gauthier paused for a moment.

“You see a lot of this [talk of revenge] in junior hockey,” he said, taking a not-too-subtle swipe at Hitchcock, who coached for many years in the junior-level Western Hockey League before becoming the Stars’ coach in 1996.

“I guess you can take the coach out of juniors, but you might not be able to take the juniors out of the coach.”

Not surprisingly, the NHL is monitoring the situation closely.

“You can expect someone with a long title to be at the game [tonight],” said Frank Brown, a league spokesman. “We’re not going to play ostrich here.”

Saturday’s violence was not the first between the Ducks and Stars. The Ducks aren’t alone, however. The Phoenix Coyotes and San Jose Sharks also have brawled with Dallas.

Phoenix center Jeremy Roenick says he was a victim of Dallas’ last call for revenge. Roenick suffered a broken jaw when Dallas defenseman Derian Hatcher slammed him into the glass April 14. Roenick knocked Modano out of a game March 23 with a hard check away from play.

“They are the best team in the league,” Roenick said of the Stars. “They should just play hockey. There’s no need to go out and hurt people. Just play the game. . . . Everybody should have learned from my situation last year. Forget all the ‘We’re going to get you back.’ That’s so grade school.”

Hitchcock said of Salei’s shove, “I’ve never seen anything in my life like that hit on Modano. . . . It was stupid hockey by a stupid player.”

But when a reporter asked his opinion of Hatcher’s hit on Roenick, Hitchcock said, “I’m not getting into that.”

Roenick seemed pleased when told of Hitchcock’s response. “I think he’s trying to let that incident die,” Roenick said. “He knows it was a vicious hit. He’s just trying to protect his guys.”

Angry though they may be in private over the lengthy suspensions to three key players, the Ducks seem willing to let Saturday’s events stay in the past. The Stars continue to express their outrage, however.

“I mean, the first game into the season, halfway through the game, they did that,” defenseman Jamie Pushor, a former Duck, told a Dallas newspaper. “I don’t know what message they were trying to send. It’s not going to scare us. To me, it was just a message that they didn’t want to win the hockey game.”

Even if nothing happens tonight--and with three players already out for a total of 19 games, the Ducks can’t afford more suspensions--the bad feelings probably will linger and fester. After all, the roots of the teams’ mutual dislike can be traced to March 13, 1998, and a hit on Duck winger Teemu Selanne by Dallas defenseman Craig Ludwig.

The Stars led, 5-1, and there were only a few minutes remaining when Ludwig, who retired at the end of last season, jumped to deliver a hard check to Selanne. Ludwig caught Selanne with his elbow, driving his head into the glass.

Three brawls quickly broke out, turning the game into a scene straight out of the movie “Slap Shot.”

“A couple of years ago, you could tell when somebody was trying to hurt you,” Selanne said when asked about Ludwig’s hit. “It’s like a jungle out there. There’s got to be more respect. . . . When I first came in the league [in 1992-93] there were probably more fights, but the game was so much more free-floating. There was more scoring.

“These days, you can see the wars. I think the problem is coming from the guys. There has to be a line. You have to be smart. If a guy is trying to hurt you, then he’s in the wrong sport.

“That isn’t sport.”

Asked specifically about Salei’s hit on Modano, Selanne said, “That was an accident. . . . Coaches are saying how stupid the guys [Salei, Trepanier and McKenzie] are, but I don’t know how smart it is to talk about revenge in the public.”

Selanne was involved in another incident involving threats of revenge. While playing for Winnipeg, Selanne was decked by a hard check in a game against Vancouver. TV cameras then caught Winnipeg tough guy Tie Domi vowing to clobber Canuck standout Pavel Bure if he played in the next game.

Selanne picked up the story: “The league told Tie, ‘If you even touch Bure, you’re going to get the longest suspension of all time.’ ”

Perhaps the most memorable payback in recent NHL history stemmed from one its most vicious incidents.

Although it has been more than three years since Colorado’s Claude Lemieux smashed Detroit’s Kris Draper face-first into the glass during a playoff game, the bad blood continues to boil between the Avalanche and Red Wings. The teams had two brawls in regular-season games without really settling the score.

Draper, who underwent hours of surgery, weighed in on the Salei-Modano incident this week.

“As soon as I saw what happened to Modano, that brought back memories of what happened to me,” Draper told reporters in Detroit. “You see him lying there and the first thing you think about is hoping he’s all right. He got carried off on a stretcher. How scary is that?”

Hits from behind are responsible for many of the most serious injuries in the NHL. Nearly everyone agrees, it’s time to curb such illegal checks. But no one is certain how to do it.

One way might be to have stop signs printed on the backs of jerseys, as youth-league teams in Canada have done this season. If a player can clearly see the stop sign on the back of his opponent, it serves as a reminder he shouldn’t deliver a check.

Modano, who issued a written statement Thursday, has other ideas.

“Do we have to wait for someone to be paralyzed or killed before the league, teams and players come together to act?” he asked.

“As professional athletes, we must uphold respect for the game and for each other. I am calling on my teammates to set an example for all players. I’m looking forward to getting back on the ice and playing as soon as possible, but not getting even.”

In an Associated Press story from Dallas, Modano was quoted as saying, “If things continue, I’m not going to play anymore. I’ve only got four or five years more [to play], then I’m done. I still have the rest of my life to live.”

* RANDY HARVEY

Ruslan Salei’s reputation contributed to the length of his suspension from NHL. Page 2