Let there be peace on ice, but come on

The prophets were correct, much to my dismay.

While I was expecting and hoping that the Blackhawks-Sabres game Saturday night would turn into a seven-alarm brawl, hockey aficionados predicted peace on earth.

The closest thing to physical play escalating into a riot came immediately after the final horn, when a scrum broke out in front of the Hawks' net.

That ended quickly and overall the game never became the donnybrook that the circumstances seemed to dictate.

All the Hawks and the Sabres did in the United Center was bicker a bit and shove each other a bit more.

Each team inflicted some good, hard, clean hockey hits, but that was it as the Hawks' 4-3 victory pretty much was limited to hockey rather than mixed martial arts.

It was a great game for hockey purists but not for a make-believe hockey goon like me. I mean, where were the fights, the Sabres' retribution and the bite to go with their bark?

“There was a little history going into today's game, Hawks coach Joel Quenneville noted.

Five days earlier in Buffalo, Hawks defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson recklessly blasted the Sabres' Jason Pominville into the boards.

After Pominville suffered a concussion and needed seven stitches to close a gash over his eye, teammates directed contempt at the Hawks.

Agitator Patrick Kaleta warned that the Sabres would “make a point that you can't be taking hits like that against one of our leaders.

Wow, I figured, this rematch was going to be one violent game. So I settled in to enjoy some good, old-fashioned hockey-style craziness.

Logic told the Sabres, carrying a four-game losing streak, to just try to win the game, but logic doesn't normally apply in the NHL.

Nor should it sometimes.

As most of you know, I myself am a rough, tough, lean, mean fighting machine that once crushed a grape with bare hands and a sledgehammer.

As I matured, however, I started living my violence vicariously through the NHL.

Saturday I figured that guy who calls himself Mayhem in the Allstate Insurance commercials would show up in the UC to punch out the Zamboni during warmups.

Then surely a Hawk and a Sabre would drop the gloves on the opening faceoff, bloody each other's faces and set the tone for a night at the fights.

Instead the Sabres limited their revenge mostly to skating and shooting. My goodness, did the NHL invoke the Geneva Convention?

Hjalmarsson had been suspended for two games, returned to face Buffalo and wasn't exactly menaced by the Sabres, who decided skill was preferable to skulduggery.

Well, can't a team be well rounded enough anymore to play solid hockey and still throw a flurry of cheap shots?

Seriously, if a Hawk destroys a Sabre with an illegal hit and the teams play again later in the same week, there has to be retaliation or this might as well be soccer.

It's only October, after all. Players have plenty of time to recover from suspensions and broken bones in their fists.

Playoff games in the spring are for restraint. Regular-season games in autumn are for establishing manhood just for the fun of it.

All I can think of is, if boys can't be boys in the man's man's game of hockey, where can they be?

mimrem@dailyherald.com