Recent news on Krys Barch: The Hockey Legend

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“Oh yeah,” he says to me on Thursday night. “I figured this was coming. No, no, no, I’m happy to talk.”
Barch was once a hockey player, in some now-hardly-recognizable form. He had 35 points in 381 career NHL games, 22 of them with the Devils in 2012-13. In those games, he also had 812 penalty minutes, most of which were accrued punching other people in the face, or looking for a fight.

He is now 34 years old and retired — presumably involuntarily. He joined Twitter, and likes to rile people up. But this one . . . well, this one got me. So I called him.

There’s no way to win the majority of public opinion on this one. Agree, you look like a rock-headed jock. Disagree, you look like a whiny writer. Both of those stereotypes exist for good reason.

Yet Barch, who is not rock-headed and was rather articulate — in contrast, I can be rather whiny — did not back down from his statement. He seemed to take joy in people reacting to what he said, because it’s something he, and so many other fans and athletes, so foolhardily believe in.

“A lot of the people that are writing this stuff don’t know the emotion and the intricacies of the sport,” he said. “They’ve watched a lot of hockey, but did they grow up with the culture of hockey? I’ve been playing since I was 3 years old, and I don’t think you can really understand all the nuances of the game without having played at a high level.”

He then said, “that is not a blanket statement” for all writers, and instead singled out two prominent columnists: Damien Cox, formerly of the Toronto Star and now writing and broadcasting for Sportsnet in Canada, and James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail, Canada’s version of USA Today. Both have been outspoken against fighting in hockey.

“They’re so negative about the physical side of the game,” Barch said. “How can there be two sides to this argument and they’re so lopsided to one side?”
But Krys, doesn’t that sound like sour grapes coming from a guy who no longer has a place in the league? “I don’t care,” he said. “I was lucky to play the game for as long as I have. I love the game of hockey, and the physical aspect has always been a part of it and always should be. There will be a day when there’s no hitting, and that’s sad.”

It’s not sad that this is the way the game has naturally progressed. Only last week, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault had this to say about fighting in the game, referring to a scrap between his young heavyweight, Dylan McIlrath, and his counterpart on the Blues, Ryan Reaves:“That type of fighting, where I think both players are trying to get their teams going . . . ahhh, I don’t know in today’s game how much of an impact it has,” Vigneault said. “I do know that it takes a lot of courage to do that. I’m still — if there is some banging going on, and two guys turn around and they say, ‘Let’s go,’ I’ve got nothing against that.“What Dylan did yesterday, and Reaves, and it’s something that takes balls to do that. But I don’t know how much room is left in the game for that right now.”

When you hear something like that, from one of the most highly regarded coaches in the league, it’s pretty clear the single-minded enforcer — the type of player Barch was — is quickly on its way to extinction.

Of his species, Barch was one of the weakest in other areas that might have allowed him to survive this cultural purging. And he’s looking for someone to blame that’s not himself, or the league, so he turns to the media. But this is a lowbrow and petty route.

Cox and Mirtle, to use Barch’s example, have spent years traveling, talking to people at the highest levels of hockey, and forming their own opinions through educating themselves. Those opinions then come out passionately. You can bring all sorts of analogies in here — and to look at the responses Barch got to his tweet, you will. I think: Did Roger Angell play big-league baseball? Did Herbert Warren Wind ever play better than bogey golf? Did David Halberstam play in the NBA? For that matter, did Gay Talese join the mob, Truman Capote kill someone, Tom Wolfe actually drop acid? (OK, fine, forget that last one.)

The fact is, if a writer has a background in his subject, it can help. But to say you have to have participated in something to really understand it has been proven false over and over again. Barch sadly doesn’t know that, or at least doesn’t care.

“My hockey career is over and I’m OK with that,” Barch said. “But this was for the 25-year-old guy who might be able to play another seven years. These [writers] have a voice, and a powerful voice.” So do you, Krys. In this age of Twitter, no one can stop you from voicing your opinion — even if you don’t know the nuances of how to do it.

http://nypost.com/2014/11/14/this-washed-up-nhl-enforcer-doesnt-think-i-should-have-a-job/