'No fun' in game after Rome hit Horton

Two players made bad decisions in an instant, something that happens fairly often in the NHL. Boston's Nathan Horton watched his pass an instant too long, and Vancouver's Aaron Rome checked him an instant too late.

Both players' seasons ended in that instant during Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. Horton dropped to the ice, apparently unconscious on his back with his eyes open and his gloved right hand reaching up frighteningly into empty space, while Rome was sent to the Canucks' dressing room under a vicious cascade of boos from Bruins fans.

Horton is out for the rest of the NHL's championship round with a severe concussion, and Rome received a four-game suspension - the longest in Stanley Cup finals history - beginning with the pivotal Game 4 tonight.

"There's no fun to this," said Mike Murphy, the NHL executive in charge of discipline for the series. "There's no enjoyment to this. Nobody wins in this. Everybody loses. The fans lose. We lost two good hockey players."

"Only people who have been on the ice can understand how fast it is, and how quick the decision-making process has to be," said Vancouver defenseman Keith Ballard, who's likely to step into Rome's lineup spot. "You feel like there's no way you can do the right thing sometimes."

Concussion awareness has grown tremendously in the NHL in recent years, with new rules and a safety protocol instituted to protect players from blindside hits and head shots. Yet several prominent players, including Pittsburgh star Sidney Crosby, Nashville's Matthew Lombardi and Boston's own high-scoring forward, Marc Savard, still have been seriously hurt by hits of wildly varying legality.

"It's such a fast game now, not to say there weren't injuries dating back," said Boston forward Gregory Campbell, whose father, Colin, gave up his job as the NHL's top disciplinarian. "I think now the awareness of the injuries is what has brought the attention on these hits. It's such a fast game now. Things happen quickly. Players are so strong. It's unfortunate that the game has to deal with this. It's kind of taken on a life of its own. It's tough to try to make everybody happy. It's almost impossible."

Rome's hit changed the tenor of a tight, defense-dominated series that featured just six goals in the first two games. The Bruins returned from the first intermission determined to win big for Horton, and they scored eight goals in the next 40 minutes as the game degenerated into a prolonged brawl, with nine misconduct penalties and 118 penalty minutes in the third period.

"The times we play the best are when there's been a lot of emotion in a very physical game," Bruins defenseman Andrew Ference said. "[That's] what our sport is all about, finding that line, playing hard. We're allowed to be physical. That's part of the fabric of our sport. We understand that it is a very fine line. A hit like that doesn't mean the guy is a bad guy or anything. They are split-second decisions, but they're split-second decisions that obviously can affect lives."

The Canucks also decried the severity of Rome's suspension, noting apparently worse hits that went unpunished earlier in the postseason. Rome was a victim of such a hit in the Western Conference final, but wasn't injured when San Jose's Jamie McGinn checked him into the boards from behind.

"Aaron isn't a dirty player," Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault said. "Never has been, never will be. It was a hit that unfortunately turned bad."

"We don't think he should have been suspended," NHL scoring champion Daniel Sedin said. "We're thinking of Romer right now. He's a hardworking guy, great teammate and a friend. He's going to be out of the playoffs. It should be a rallying cry for us, too."

"We need to clean up this game from those kinds of hits," Bruins coach Claude Julien said. "You've got to remember, in the days where players were policing themselves, I'm not sure the players were as strong, as big and quick as they are today. The game has changed a lot in regards to that, so somehow we've got to, I guess, make some changes to the rules, adapt to what it has become, and understand that the hits today are a lot harder than they were 30, 40 years ago."

* Former Flyer Rod Brind'Amour and former NHL head coach Dave Lewis have been added to the Carolina Hurricanes coaching staff. Brind'Amour will carry the titles of assistant coach and development coach.