Stick game is one NHL should avoid

The NHL missed a great marketing opportunity when it suspended New York Islanders henchman Chris Simon for playing

T-ball with the chin of New York Rangers enforcer Ryan Hollweg.

The league ordered Simon to sit out a minimum of 25 games, a sentence that will carry over to next season if the Islanders exit the playoffs quickly. Chief disciplinarian Colin Campbell issued a predictably stern statement Sunday that said the NHL “will not accept the use of a stick in the manner and fashion in which Mr. Simon used his Thursday night.”

Campbell should have announced the creation of a gladiators’ league in which Simon and other goons would beat each other to a pulp during pregame exhibitions and intermissions.

Think of it. Let the fighters battle each other, satisfying fans who enjoy fisticuffs, and leave the real games for the real players, the ones who want to play without fear of being whacked upside the head.

The NHL has developed a strange and unhealthy fixation with gladiators, blood and violence. Eager to make a splash in its return from a crippling lockout, the league adopted an advertising campaign last season that featured a half-naked woman sending her warrior off to battle.

The “battle” was a hockey game, staged before thousands of spectators who were passionate and, presumably, bloodthirsty.

Sexism was the least of the ad’s sins. It was a misguided and offensive attempt to romanticize the horrors of war during a time people were -- and still are -- dying in Iraq, Afghanistan and other global conflicts. Hockey players are noble, tough, unselfish. On the whole, they’re the most unspoiled of professional athletes. But they’re playing a game, for which they’re richly compensated. A little perspective would have been a good idea.

More recently the NHL has been promoting the new movie “300,” a retelling of the ancient battle of Thermopylae. King Leonidas and a band of 300 Spartans fought to the death against Xerxes and a massive Persian army, inspiring Greece to unite against Persia and fight for democracy.

Rated R for “graphic battle sequences throughout, some sexuality and nudity,” it was described as “a videogame come to life” by The Times’ Kenneth Turan, one of many reviewers who panned its relentless violence. It’s a mixture of live action and virtual backgrounds, replete with blood and impalings.

Just like an NHL game! What great synergy!

This should be a boom time for the NHL, yet it seems prone to continue stumbling over its own two skates.

Pittsburgh Penguins phenom Sidney Crosby has eclipsed 100 points. Goalies Dominik Hasek and Martin Brodeur have been ageless wonders. There’s terrific competition for rookie of the year between Russian wunderkind Evgeni Malkin and second-generation standout Paul Stastny. Pittsburgh’s Jordan Staal has scored an astonishing seven short-handed goals and 27 overall. If Anze Kopitar of the Kings hadn’t been hampered by a back injury, he’d be vying for the honor, too.

When the NHL aligned itself with the online video-sharing site YouTube a few months ago, league officials undoubtedly envisioned fans would sit in front of computer screens and devour replays of Crosby’s sleight of hand, Hasek’s mastery, Kopitar’s skills and smarts.

Instead, fans can’t get enough of Simon’s two-hander to Hollweg’s face, presented in glorious color and agonizingly detailed slow motion.

As of late Sunday, the half-dozen videos of the incident posted on YouTube had been viewed nearly a million times. A Chris Simon tribute, set to “Welcome to the Jungle” and showing the greatest hits of this six-time visitor to the NHL’s kangaroo court of justice, had been viewed nearly 30,000 times.

This kind of synergy is something the NHL can do without. But again it has, although unwittingly, provided the material for smothering it in ridicule.

It doesn’t matter that Hollweg, a Downey native, wasn’t seriously hurt. It’s the intent that matters and the lack of respect among players that is evident day after ugly, bloody day.

The NHL Players’ Assn. has a responsibility to tell its members that hits with the sole intent to injure must stop. They do no good for the image of the game -- and its potential revenues -- and they do no good for the well-being of individual players.

Hockey is a physical game. People will get hurt. Everyone accepts that. But no one should countenance late hits or blows to the head like Chris Neil’s hit on Buffalo’s Chris Drury, or the late hit by New Jersey’s Cam Janssen that sent Toronto’s Tomas Kaberle head-first into the boards. Or Simon’s slash of Hollweg.

It’s almost a cliche to suggest that this will continue until someone dies in an on-ice incident. Sadly, that’s becoming more likely. Spartans in Thermopylae died for something important, not for a game. No NHL player should be that much of a warrior.

helene.elliott@latimes.com