Over the weekend, NHL disciiplinarian Colin Campbell handed down a 25 game suspension to New York Islanders forward Chris Simon for a slash to New York Rangers forward Ryan Hollweg. This suspension is the longest in league history.

After graduating from law school, I worked heavily in criminal law. The main principal of sentencing used in this situation was that of deterence; the league did not want other players following Simon's example. The suspension, however, does not deal with the longer term issues normally addressed through criminal law sentencing.

A major consideration when determining a sentence for an individual convicted of an offence is rehabilition. Besides telling the rest of the players not to do something like what Simon did, measures should be taken to assist him in not committing the same type of action again. Relative to NHL salaries, Simon is not really losing a lot of money; Pavel Kubina of the Toronto Maple Leafs lost about 1/5 the amount from a one game suspension.

Speaking of relativity, Simon's suspension is unusually stiff. Let's put his suspension in perspective by comparing it to other ones handed out by the league:

- Marty McSorley used his stick to hit Donald Brashear in the head when the game was already out of reach. Brashear needed to be carried off the ice. McSorley received a 23 game suspension.

- Todd Bertuzzi punched Steve Moore from behind while away from the play, effectively ending Moore's hockey career. He received a 20 game suspension.

Hollweg only required a few stitches and expects to miss no playing time. The only justifications I can see for Simon's sentence are that (1) unlike McSorley who was aiming for Brashear's shoulder, Simon's hit was probably intentional and (2) he had discipline issues in the past. Although of little overall impact, I believe that Simon's suspension should have been given akin to Bertuzzi's rather than McSorley's.

In the end, I believe that the league did make the correct decision in handing Simon a large suspension, but it should have gone further and implemented steps to assist players in lessening the chances of vicious hits like this from occurring again.

As a side note, I'll point out that Chris Simon was involved in a family law dispute that is widely quoted by many legal writers. It's just an interesting fact I thought I'd share.