OPINION

By Kara Yorio

updated 5:21 p.m. ET March 12, 2007

Kara Yorio

Chris Simon got off easy. He should not have the option of playing in an NHL game until the 2008-09 season. And if that were to end his career, so be it.

Ignore that Ryan Hollweg somehow survived Simon's brutal stick attack with only some stitches in his chin. Never mind Simon's claims that he has a concussion from Hollweg's hit from behind and didn't know what he was doing when he hunted Hollweg and swung his stick at his head. Concussions are an injury of convenience in this league -- most often ignored at the player's peril and sometimes diagnosed and discussed when it could benefit the player or his team.

Simon is responsible for his actions. Others have played with concussions and not done what he did. And the lack of a serious injury to Hollweg doesn't lessen the offense, either.

If Hollweg were lying in a hospital right now in a coma, would the league's punishment have been more severe? There is no doubt in my mind.

That is a mistake. It is part of the problem with the sliding scales of justice in the NHL, the unwillingness to have a blanket punishment for hits to the head or assaults with the stick. It's nice to judge things on a case-by-case basis, in theory. In practicality, it just keeps the incidents coming.

But the league will defend itself and call this decision harsh. In numbers, Simon's minimum 25-game suspension will look bigger than the one Marty McSorley received more than seven years ago when he hit Donald Brashear in the head with his stick. But that's a technicality. McSorley's punishment was much more severe. He missed the final 23 games of the regular season, but commissioner Gary Bettman extended the suspension to a calendar year. McSorley was 36 years old at the time of the incident and never got back to the NHL.

Simon's suspension for his two-handed swing at Hollweg's head nets him this minimum 25-game suspension. It includes the Islanders' final 15 games of the regular season and any playoff games they may play. If they play fewer than 10 playoff games, the suspension would continue over into next season until he has missed 25 NHL games. The maximum the suspension could be is 43 games -- if the Islanders were to play four, seven-game series in the playoffs.

In the offseason, Simon will be free to sign with whoever is willing to take him. At 35, maybe he won't get another offer, but chances are he will. It's a good bet Chris Simon will be in an NHL game next October and for that, the league should be ashamed.

This is not about Chris Simon, the man. This is about Chris Simon's actions. Those actions say he shouldn't step on the ice as an NHL player the rest of this season and all of next season. The league's decision says he can. It's too bad.

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