McSorley probably thought that too before Clark fed him his lunch in the maple leaf gardens.
Ask Gretzky what effect Semenko and McSorley's presence on the ice had on his game.
I would agree, I'd prefer to have guys like Clark or Neely than Semenko. But baring that you have to have someone on your team who can step up. And typically it's better if they play regular shifts. When the tigers had Benfeld and Dorsett there weren't too many liberties taken on the tigers. When the tigs and the Giants met in the finals McArdle's stick work and yapping went from off the charts to a dull roar after benny sorted him out.
And yeah, this is where someone who hates contact in hockey pipes up that Wendel Clark would have played another 5 years if he didn't play like that, always finishing checks, always standing up for a team mate. Well I'm sure if in 1989 someone would have told Clark that if he just stopped laying punishing hits, stopped manning up, and stopped being a character guy (in other words play like the 2010/2011 canucks) his career would be longer and he would have probably made 8 or so million dollars more he would have said no deal.
There are fewer and fewer character guys in hockey anymore. The canucks had none of them, instead they had the sedins. The Bruins had a bunch of them. Look how that finished.
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"Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair and beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back."
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