April 25, 1997
Perhaps Griffin Darcy Simon was hit harder in the head than it first appeared when he played in Orlando last Saturday. (If you recall, Simon was badly cut in front of the visitors' goal during the third period and left the game.) Or perhaps a tetanus shot isn't the only injection Simon needs. Maybe a rabies vaccine would be more fitting - after all, he likes to bite opposing hockey players. Yes, I said bite.
During the post-game radio program "Bear Calls" after Thursday's initial contest, Orlando centerman Dave Smith remarked that he had been bitten on the finger by Simon. I thought for certain I had misheard him, or that Dave, known for his agitating style, might have had this finger in a provocative location.
However, during the end-of-game brawl in Grand Rapids at the end of the Bear's first win of the series, Simon came out after Barry Dreger, and during the course of that fight, bit him on the arm. From what I've heard, he broke the skin, and Dreger still has teeth marks on his arm. Down, boy!
Grand Rapids' coach Dave Allison has a lot to answer for, in allowing (excuse my partisanship) freaky players like Simon to run unchecked around the ice. Simon may be the Griffin's enforcer, but if the Michigan team has to rely on childish behavior of this sort, they got less than they deserved when Barry Dreger re-opened that huge cut on Simon's face.
Play hockey, skate, fight if you must, but leave the biting to the dogs.
Contributed by Erika Heumann, the Hockeynut
Erika Heumann
Hockeynut; Solar Bears' author; and currently unemployed Mechanical
Engineer - eminently employable.
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